Why Jamie Lee Curtis hates the horror genre: “The last thing in the world I want to do is see a horror movie”
Before the likes of Jenna Ortega and Mia Goth were crowned horror’s current scream queens, there was Jamie Lee Curtis, who was practically born with the title flowing through her veins. As the daughter of Janet Leigh, who famously played the unfortunate Marion Crane in Psycho, it only made sense that Curtis’ breakthrough role was also a horror one, and she made her film debut in the John Carpenter slasher Halloween.
The classic film changed the horror genre forever, becoming one of the most successful indie movies of all time with its attack on comfortable suburbia. No one is safe in Halloween, where Curtis’ character, Laurie Strode, is terrorised by the terrifying masked killer Michael Myers. She became the ultimate final girl, managing to survive the events of the film, subsequently returning for many sequels.
Not only has Curtis appeared in various Halloween sequels, some considerably better than others, but she has also starred in other horror flicks, with her second role being 1980’s The Fog, also directed by Carpenter. Then she picked a leading role in the slasher Prom Night before appearing in yet another slasher Terror Train, a movie significantly inspired by Halloween.
Clearly, the actor rode on the back of the success of Halloween for a while, but you might be shocked to discover that she claims to hate horror movies and being scared. How she was thus able to act out sequences where she was chased by murderers is baffling, but clearly she’s a professional who puts her fears aside for the sake of making a good movie.
Talking to Unilad, the actor revealed her confusion as to why she is dubbed a horror queen. “I don’t like it. So I don’t understand why, then, I am known for these movies”. Perhaps she’s forgotten the many horror movies she has taken on over her career?
In another interview, this time on The Graham Norton Show, the actor reinforced her hatred of the horror genre, stating, “I don’t like watching them. I don’t know why anyone likes watching them, but I’m grateful they do. They screened it for me in an empty movie theatre and I had the volume control. As soon as the scary music started, I’d turn down it right down.”
Horror movies certainly aren’t for everyone, but you’d think that someone like Curtis would be a little more interested in the genre, considering the credits she has to her name, along with her role in one of the most influential scary movie franchises ever made. The actor takes as many chances as she can get to lay bare her disinterest in watching the kinds of movies that make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, and in an interview with Fox 32 Chicago back in 2021, Curtis said, “I’m 62 years old. I’ve not seen any horror film ever, except for the ones I’m in. Because the last thing in the world I want to do is see a horror movie.”
Clearly, she prefers something a bit more lighthearted when it comes to picking a movie to watch, perhaps like Freaky Friday.
