Jamie Lee Curtis reveals she’s been trying to quit Hollywood for 30 years
Jamie Lee Curtis has revealed that she has been trying to quit Hollywood for the past 30 years, describing her process of “self-retiring” over that time.
The actor was speaking in a recent interview with The Guardian, in which she said she wanted to avoid the same fate as her parents, Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, who were “rejected” by the industry after reaching a “certain age”.
Curtis explained: “I witnessed my parents lose the very thing that gave them their fame and their life and their livelihood, when the industry rejected them at a certain age,” before noting, “I watched them reach incredible success and then have it slowly erode to where it was gone. And that’s very painful.”
As a result, the actor shed light on her slow phasing out from Hollywood by saying: “I have been self-retiring for 30 years. I have been prepping to get out, so that I don’t have to suffer the same as my family did. I want to leave the party before I’m no longer invited.”
Despite this, Curtis’ career still remains healthy, having starred in the critically-acclaimed The Last Showgirl alongside Pamela Anderson last year, and as she prepares to return to the comedy sequel Freakier Friday, starring opposite Lindsay Lohan.
Elsewhere in the interview, Curtis reflected on her historic addiction issues, which she had only just become sober from at the time of the original Freaky Friday in 2003. “There’s no one way to be an addict or an alcoholic,” she reasoned. “People hide things – I was lucky, and I am ambitious, and so I never let that self-medication get in the way of my ambition or work or creativity.”
Freakier Friday will be released in cinemas on August 8th, 2025.
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