Jamie Lee Curtis Shares the Perfect Advice John Carpenter Gave Her On ‘Halloween’: “I thought that meant weak”
Chad Collins
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For all the Sidney Prescotts and Nancy Thompsons of the universe, there’s little denying that Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode is the final girl to end all the final girls. While not the first or last to embody the final girl trope, a term first coined by Carol Clover to describe the sole slasher survivor whose moral superiority inoculates her from harm, she is undoubtedly one of the best, not to mention the most iconographic.
Everyone everywhere knows Laurie Strode. Yet, for as much credit as Jamie Lee Curtis deserves for the character, especially in terms of maintaining relevancy this century, both John Carpenter and Debra Hill deserve props for conceptualizing her in the first place. John Carpenter especially seems to have helped Curtis a great deal when it came to portraying Strode in the first Halloween movie.
During a panel at the 2022 New York Comic Con, Curtis, just 19 at the time of filming (with the adding pressure of hailing from two screen legends) noted being understandably nervous. John Carpenter, in turn, offered her a nugget of wisdom to help in her performance. Curtis is quoted as saying:
“All John (Carpenter) said was I want her (Laurie) to be vulnerable. Now, when I was 19, first of all I couldn’t spell vulnerable because I barely got out of high school. I thought that meant weak for some reason. I’m not a thesaurus, but I thought vulnerable meant weak.”
That wasn’t the case, necessarily, though it didn’t register with Curtis until she caught Halloween in a packed Hollywood auditorium. The audience response was reportedly raucous as Laurie Strode first entered the Wallace household to check on friend Lynda. During the Comic Con panel, Curtis remarked feeling impressed by the use of Steadicam, a technique that no doubt augmented the tension to its boiling point. Reportedly, according to Curtis, a woman screamed, “Don’t go in there! There’s a killer in the house.”
Resultantly, Curtis realized that rather than weakness, John Carpenter’s interpretation of vulnerability was that of both audience identification and care. She remarked, “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.”
That vulnerability, coupled with Curtis’ iconic portrayal, no doubt accounts for why Laurie Strode, even after more than forty years, remains the final girl to end all final girls. John Carpenter and Debra Hill gave Jamie Lee Curtis the start, and for decades, she’s been running with it.
What do you think? Who’s your favorite final girl? Let me know over on Twitter @Chadiscollins!
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