Jamie Lee Curtis brings ‘Halloween Kills’ to Venice fest

VENICE LIDO, Italy – Jamie Lee Curtis, buoyantly upbeat, was honored at the Venice Film Festival Wednesday with a premiere screening of “Halloween Kills” and presented with an honorary Golden Lion for career achievement.
Curtis, the daughter of ‘50s-era Hollywood royalty Janet Leigh (“Psycho”) and Tony Curtis (“Some Like It Hot”), was 18 when she made her film debut in the now-classic “Halloween.” As teenage babysitter Laurie Strode she alone survived a massacre by knife-wielding masked sociopath Michael Myers.
“I have played the same character for 43 years,” Curtis, 62, noted.  “I think that’s unprecedented.”
“Halloween” is one of a trio of film Curtis cited as career favorites. The others are the cult comedy “A Fish Called Wanda” and James Cameron’s action comedy “True Lives.”
She amended that to add a fourth: “Trading Places, the Eddie Murphy comedy that changed her career, freeing her from being limited to a horror scream queen.
Curtis was amused to discover that here in Italy “Trading Places,” where she did a still-surprising bosom baring moment, plays often on television.
“I said, ‘They show ALL of it on television!’ And I’m thinking of 14-year-old boys seeing my incredible, beautiful 21-year-old self and thinking, ‘Wow! that’s very different than America.’ I love that movie, it’s still seriously funny.”
The new “Halloween Kills” is the middle film in a trilogy that began with the series’ reboot – and Curtis’ return to the role – in 2018.  “Halloween Ends” begins filming in January.
Asked about her decades-long relationship with Laurie Strode, Curtis said, “The most exciting thing about being an actor is we all have changed.  The beauty of human beings is we change. We’re battered and bruised. Our bones heal. That’s what I love about the humanness of Laurie
“Ultimately I think what it’s saying is you relate to Laurie because you are wounded too.
“There was a moment when it was my last shot of the 2018 movie and it was Laurie alone in her truck, watching Michael leave the prison and 40 years of that experience come back to haunt her. There is no dialogue. It’s me alone.
“As I approached the set — I like name tags so I know everyone — and the entire crew, the Teamsters, everybody, was standing in silent solidarity with their hands behind their back and names tags that all said, ‘We are all Laurie Strode and we are with you Jamie as you face it.’
“That was a profound moment for me as an actor because it said, ‘We’re all the same. All battered, all bruised. But still here.’”