Why Jamie Lee Curtis Said Yes to Halloween in 1978 — And How That Simple Choice Changed Everything

Here is a fun twist on horror history: the entire Halloween franchise as we know it almost didn’t happen the way it did, and it basically came down to Jamie Lee Curtis needing a job. The original 1978 movie is the kind of lightning-in-a-bottle that launched a whole empire of masked boogeyman mayhem, but the real hook is that it gave us Laurie Strode vs. Michael Myers for more than four decades.

The movie that built the modern boogeyman

John Carpenter’s Halloween wasn’t just a hit in 1978; it set the template for 12 more movies to follow. Carpenter boiled the old-school boogeyman myth down to its scariest parts and sent Michael Myers (also credited as The Shape) stalking the suburbs. But that dread only really works because Jamie Lee Curtis puts a human face on it as Laurie Strode, his main target and the franchise’s moral compass.

How we almost didn’t get Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie

Curtis didn’t exactly glide into Hollywood on a perfect plan. She tried studying law at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, California, dropped out, and pivoted to acting. She landed a role on the TV series Operation Petticoat (inspired by a 1950s movie her dad, Tony Curtis, starred in), but that show was canceled just before Halloween came calling. Timing, meet destiny.

When the part of Laurie popped up, Curtis wasn’t agonizing over character arcs. She was just trying to work. As she put it to Katie Walsh at Nerdist:

What drew me to it was begging for a job... there wasn’t a moment of contemplation. I didn’t have the job, I got the job, took the job, did the job. There’s no deep thought attached to it.

From there, the horror roles kept rolling, and the 'scream queen' label stuck. Not bad for a gig she took because she needed one.

Laurie Strode’s long, jagged road

Across 13 Halloween films, Curtis appears in seven. Laurie spends years surviving and scrapping with Myers, until she’s killed off in 2002’s Halloween Resurrection. That seemed definitive. Then 2018 happened.

Director David Gordon Green and Universal Pictures revived the saga with a new three-film run that treated the 1978 classic as the baseline and brought Curtis back as Laurie, 40 years later. Old wounds reopened, knives came back out, and the cat-and-mouse finally wrapped in Halloween Ends (2022). That felt like a curtain call.

Or... maybe not?

Curtis recently left the door cracked open, just a bit. Talking to Entertainment Weekly, she said:

I have hung up my bell bottoms and my pale blue button-down shirt, and I have relinquished [Laurie] to the ages with a warm, 'aloha,' and a thanks for all the years and memories... And yet, if I’ve learned anything in my 65 years on the planet, it’s never say never. Goodbye.

Translation: Laurie is done... unless she isn’t. Goosebumps achieved.

• Curtis shows up in seven of the franchise’s 13 films, starting with the 1978 original and circling back for the 2018-2022 trilogy.
• Laurie Strode dies in Halloween Resurrection (2002), but returns in the later sequel trilogy that branches off the original.
• If you blink during Halloween Kills, you might miss a cheeky, unofficial cameo from Better Call Saul star Bob Odenkirk.
• Kyle Richards (yes, from The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills) pushed through injuries on Halloween Kills and didn’t want her stunt double stepping in.
• The Halloween movies are available on Apple TV.

All told, the franchise built its legend on a simple, primal terror and one stubborn heroine. And it only came together because Jamie Lee Curtis said yes fast, worked even faster, and accidentally became horror royalty.