Halloween H20: Interview with Jamie Lee Curtis
Interview with Jamie Lee Curtis
Q: People have been saying that you're the one behind this project
JLC: I am.
Q: Why revisit HALLOWEEN twenty years later?
JLC: I wanted to revisit for a three-fold reason that I've now articulated beautifully. One - twenty years. It's impossible. It's just been an impossible amount of time that's been in the making. Twenty years. I just can't believe it. I've been working as an actor for twenty years. It's more time since HALLOWEEN than I lived on the planet before HALLOWEEN. That's just insane. Something had to be done. It couldn't go by unnoticed. I don't think it's ever been done before. You know, there's been a couple movies where they bring the same actors back, I know the LAST PICTURE SHOW they did that. I'm more viable today than I was 20 years ago. The genre is more viable today than it was 20 years ago. It just seemed like an opportunity where if you missed it, you'd really regret it. For me, to be able to look back on this at the end of my career, and say, "You know what? I did that. That's so cool." To be able to go to a movie theater and watch a double bill of HALLOWEEN and H20? How great would that be! To watch the same actress play the same part 20 years later...that's just insane. Then, there's an opportunity on a personal level to say thank you to a group of people who truly gave me everything I have. I look at everything I have in my career, and its all attributable to my performance. Everything points back to horror movies, because they gave me everything I have. I started in horror movies, they gave me a platform to stand on, and its my way of saying thank you to that audience, that fan-base. It's like, "This blood's for you!" Here, have this one on me! Because I really appreciate it. I saw the opportunity to be realistic and show the horror of horror movies. Show the result of horror movies. Here's an opportunity for this girl, who's supposedly a survivor, but in fact, she's not a survivor - because she has no soul. That's what was ripped from her. Her ability to trust. Her ability to love. So even though she's done everything a woman's supposed to do to make her happy - she's gone to college, gotten a degree, got married and has a child - she's empty. She's a wreck, because he stole this from her. So if you set that up in a movie, and you really pay homage to that reality, and you don't shy from it, and you don't go "well this is a little heavy," and then create an opportunity for the character to escape. She can get away and keep running, but ultimately by running the metaphor, she'll die, because she's either blow her brains out in a year or she'll get in a car wreck, or whatever happens down the road. But she stops running, and turns around, and faces him head on. Mano a mano. To the death. She may die, physically, but she gets her soul back. Now that is a slightly long-winded and lofty goal for a horror movie, but if you can pull that off, then you have a movie to commemorate the first movie. This was my pitch over and over and over. I didn't care where they set it, how the other peripheral characters interplayed into the story. The focus of the story is Laurie Strode and her struggle.
Q: Were you like an executive producer?
JLC: I am proudly an unbilled executive producer. I'm Laurie Strode's guardian angel.
Q: Did John [Carpenter] and Debra [Hill] at any point involved in H20?
JLC: We started out together. Obviously, the first call I made was to John and to Debra. We had lunch at Hamburger Hamlet on Doheny and Sunset. We talked about it. We went to Bob [Weinstein] together. He said, "We have this movie coming out soon, it's called SCREAM, its going to reinvent the horror movie." We thought, oh great, excellent! But then when the realities came down about how we could make this movie, obviously it had to be released in the fall of '98, had to be made in Spring of '98, had to be pre-productioned in the winter of '97, had to be written in summer/spring of '97, at the time we actually plotted out how it was going to have to be made. They couldn't do it.
Q: Have they seen it?
JLC: No, they haven't. But they're going to.
Q: Can you tell us a little bit about working with Paul Freeman and Moustapha Akkad?
JLC: Those were aspects that were brought into the movie. Do you know that I had never met Moustapha Akkad in twenty years? The man who actually put up the money for HALLOWEEN I had never met, until about a week before shooting began, and we had a meeting about the script. And again, hammering home this hope for the story, which even met with some friction from them. Paul and Moustapha were good. They were the Paul and Moustapha side, whereas I was the Jamie/Steve side. Then there was Miramax in the middle. And we were all making the same movie. Ultimately, Steve is the boss, and Steve was great about handling all of the different aspects. And then there's Kevin. I mean, there's a bunch of different people involved here. I collaborated with them, but I really collaborated with Steve. He was really my partner on this.
Q: What was the resistance?
JLC: I think they were afraid it was just too dark. I think that people were afraid to go where I wanted to go. I think they didn't know if that kind of dysfunction was going to be acceptable for the lead character in the movie. But I kept saying that she's the lead character in the movie who was stalked and terrorized at the age of 17. Let's not forget this. I don't think we have a lot of history where that kind of female character, an alcoholic drug-addict, is a winning example of a heroine. I think they were just hesitant. I think it was an accurate of somebody with a problem. I think there are a lot of people fighting "demons," like alcohol, drugs, abusive relationships, obesity.
Q: Do you like horror films?
JLC: I'm a complete chicken. I've been saying this for 20 years, and nobody ever takes me seriously. I can't see a horror movie. I hate them. I don't like looking at them. I don't like to be frightened. I don't like to have that scary music, and know that something scary is going to jump out. Obviously, I can see the movies I'm in, because I know it's coming. But all the stuff in this movie, all the kids in the school...I couldn't watch that. I fast-forwarded through that. I watched SCREAM by fast-forward with the lights on.
Q: But you don't mind performing in them?
JLC: No, that's not as bad. That's not a problem for me. It's when things jump out at me that I don't like. I couldn't have seen HALLOWEEN. I don't think I'll go see SAVING PRIVATE RYAN because I can't take it.
Q: Scary scenes like the bathroom scene in H20?
JLC: The poster I wanted, was, there's one brief second, where you see [Michael's] face through the door. I wanted that frame to be the poster for the movie. It was so beautiful when I saw the dailies. You know, the truth was that little girl [in the scene] got really scared. The first day of shooting was that day. And they did the exterior. And in fact, she didn't have to interact with him at all. But, he was actually waiting around the side of this stall, to do his part of the scene, and she was leaving. She caught glimpse of this guy in the mask, and freaked out.
Q: Why did they jump over what happened to your marriage in this film?
JLC: I think some of the dialogue was pretty much supposed to give you the answer. It was supposed to let you know that that marriage was a doomed marriage.
Q: Laurie must have had her son right away after the first film.
JLC: Well, seventeen...yeah...three...yeah...probably in college. Maybe he was a professor. (laughs)
Q: Was it hard to get your mother for her cameo?
JLC: It was hard to get her, only because I wouldn't let them get her until it was right. I was not content with just calling up my mom and saying "Mom, just play my secretary please." It really demanded good writing. And I made them go back to the table 3 or 4 times and said "Guys, write me a scene with my mom that will encompass everything we'd want to see with me and my mom in a movie." It had to be scary, it had to be poignant, it had to be very "knowing," very inside. It was very much like taking a bow. When she walks to the car and says "Happy Halloween," as far as I'm concerned, it's her doing a huge stage bow and saying, "Thank you very much for a great career." That's how I saw it.
Q: You seem so excited over all this work on the film, like a producer. Are you an actor or a producer?
JLC: I'm not [a producer]. I can tell you that I can now understand the egomaniac-ness of aeuter directors. I totally understand now how it feels to move an audience with your ideas. As an actor, you just don't feel connected to it, because you're just a pawn in it. But to actually be crafting from your mind a set of experiences for a large group of people, it really gets you into the idea that wow, you can really movie masses of people. It was a really interesting experience for me which I've never had before, except for my children's books, which I get a tremendous sense of pride and pleasure from, because I can directly attribute their success to my mind. I can't say that about movies, but I can say that about this one [H20]. So I have this whole new respect for creating this movie-going experience. I also understand how scary it is to know that it may not work.
Q: What have you learned from your parents about the Hollywood business that has helped you have a full life and career?
JLC: (pauses) From my dad, I've learned that velvet always looks good (laughs). From my mom, I really learned about professional acting from my mom. She is the consummate professional.
Q: Did you always want to be an actress?
JLC: I've always been an actress.
main
