From having hot-dog hands in Everything Everywhere All at Once to riding on the back of Chad Michael Murray’s motorcycle in Freaky Friday, Jamie Lee Curtis has done it all. And she says she owes it all to Laurie Strode. Speaking to Matt Zoller Seitz at Vulture Festival 2022 on November 12, Curtis said that she owed her scream-queen status from befriending John Carpenter and Debra Hill, who cast her in both Halloween and The Fog. From there, she was asked by John Landis to host a documentary about horror-movie trailers. She cracked him up on set so much that he cast her in Trading Places. “I am in Trading Places because of horror films,†she said. “And because of that movie, John Cleese wrote the part in A Fish Called Wanda, and because of A Fish Called Wanda, Jim Cameron wrote the part in True Lies. So the truth of the matter is, if I trace it back, all of my great successes are directly related to Laurie Strode.â€
But not every great Jamie Lee Curtis role was expressly written for her. One of her ultimate performances came when she was asked to replace the original lead in Freaky Friday with only one week to prepare. “I was on a book tour on a Thursday, I read the script on a Friday,†she told the crowd. “I met Mark Waters on Saturday, I had my hair dyed red on Sunday, and I was working Monday.†Curtis demanded a guitar teacher in order to competently fake performing in Greatest Band of All Time Pink Slip. She even practiced in front of her husband, Spinal Tap member Christopher Guest. “My husband is lovely and supporting-ish,†she said, providing an example. After performing the big guitar solo in “Take Me Away†with Lindsay Lohan, Curtis looked up, awaiting the praise she obviously deserved. Guest just stared her down, the opposite of Corky St. Clair. But she knows the truth: “I slayed.â€