Scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis gushed over her fans at the New York Comic Con over the weekend.
The 64-year-old actress spoke with Drew Barrymore on Saturday to thousands regarding her famed role as Laurie Strode in the Halloween horror film franchise. The latest edition in the horror series, “Halloween Ends,” is being touted as the final installment.
Curtis profusely thanked her fans for following her growth as Strode through the years, and even teared-up when coming to the realization that her 44 years as the final survivor is coming to a close.
“I went into a theater in Hollywood, a late-night Theater in Hollywood. It was a packed house, it was around Halloween, and I stood in the back,” Curtis recalled thinking back to the 1970s. “A woman in the middle stood up and went: ‘Don’t go in there! There is a killer in that house!’ It was like the moment the theater was released and the whole theater started the audience participation that we now know is a horror movie experience. That’s what he meant [director John Carpenter] by wanting her [Laurie Strode] to be vulnerable, so you cared about her and didn’t want her to get hurt. And you haven’t wanted me to get hurt for 44 years.”
A packed house at the Jacob Javits’ Empire Stage roared with applause for the starlet who after more than four decades playing the character charges that she is grateful for the fame and appreciation it has brought her. Fans waved cardboard cutouts of both her face and the face of the movies’ antagonist, masked killer Michael Myers as she spoke.
While many actors who became synonymous with a single role have become jaded by it, Curtis told fans that she is thankful for the experience. She even got eerily forthright regarding how herself and Strode have become intertwined to the point it will be in the newspaper headlines upon her death.
“When I say you guys have cared for me, you have carried her, you have loved her but what you have to know is at this point Jamie and Laurie have become woven together there — there is no separation,” Curtis said, becoming emotional when looking out at her fans. “You know, one of these days, hopefully not tomorrow, but you know, I’m 64. Do the math, it is not in my favor. Sooner or later, it is going to say three words: ‘Halloween actress dies.’ Of course, she’s gonna die but when she dies my point is that it is the permanent ink of my life, it is you guys, it is the permanent saturation into me.”
Curtis ended the conversation by asking all her fans to hold up their cardboard faces as she took video of them cheering for her, as they have done for over 40 years prior.
Halloween Ends is set to hit theaters and stream on Peacock on Oct. 14.
