Jamie Lee Curtis Shares John Carpenter’s ‘Perfect Advice’ For Her ‘Halloween’ Role

Jamie Lee Curtis was only 19 when she played Laurie Strode for the first time in 1978’s Halloween. The Oscar-winning actress, who is now 64, attended New York Comic Con in 2022, where she recalled her experience with an audience after director John Carpenter gave her the “perfect advice” that changed her perspective.

Thanks to him, Jamie gained a better understanding of vulnerability and how it applied to her signature role as a scream queen. “All John said was, ‘I want her to be vulnerable,’” she said. “I thought that meant weak for some reason. I’m not a thesaurus, but I thought vulnerable meant weak.”

Jamie’s theater experience

Jamie never really understood what John meant until she visited a theater in Hollywood after the movie’s release. “It was a packed house around Halloween, and I stood in the back,” she recounted, noting that she was watching their reaction.

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During the scene where Jamie’s Laurie enters the home of Lindsey Wallace (Real Housewife of Beverly Hill‘s Kyle Richards) to check on Lynda Van Der Klog (P.J. Soles), the audience goes berserk, and “a woman in the middle stood up and says, ‘Don’t go in there, there’s a killer in the house!'”

“The whole theater started doing the audience participation we now know as the horror movie experience,” Jamie added.

Vulnerability is key

The audience’s response and connection to the film opened up Jamie’s mind to further understand John. “It was in that second that I went, ‘Oh, that’s what he meant. He wanted her to be vulnerable so that you cared about her, and you didn’t want her to get hurt.’ And you guys haven’t wanted me to get hurt for 44 years,” she gushed.

Without vulnerability, the horror genre would hardly be what it is. It’s what causes the audience to connect with the story, and feel protective of the protagonist. The Freaky Friday actress has since created a place for herself in the horror niche, going on to win multiple awards and reprising her role in numerous entries of the Halloween series.