Halloween icon Jamie Lee Curtis wants you to know she’s ‘seen the f**king trauma meme so don’t worry’
Jamie Lee Curtis said at the New York Comic Con interview that she felt fans connected to her character Laurie Strode as she represented “pure innocence” and “kindness”. (Getty)
Halloween legend Jamie Lee Curtis had addressed “the f**king trauma meme”.
In 2018, Curtis starred in a sequel to her iconic 1978 horror film Halloween, confusingly also titled Halloween.
During the press tour for the film, Curtis spoke at length about how the film explored “trauma” – or as she pronounces it, ‘traw-mah’. A fan-made supercut of her repeating the word became a meme that, unsurprisingly given the world we live in, continues to resurface every couple of months.
While promoting the upcoming sequel, Halloween Ends, at New York Comic Con, Curtis explained what she meant when she spoke about her character Laurie’s trauma – and confirmed that she’s in on the joke.
“Laurie Strode, at 17, survived that night,” Jamie Lee Curtis said of the original film, which ends with Laurie as the lone survivor of serial killer Michael Myers.
“Her friends were killed, and I believe that Laurie Strode went to school November 2, 1978, with a bandaid on her arm.
She continued: “And at that moment, nobody said a word. There was no therapy. There was no hope.”
The Halloween reboot, which picked up 40 years on, “was this incredibly beautiful film about Laurie and her trauma”, Curtis continued.
“And I’ve seen the f**ing meme so don’t worry!
“It was funny, but the movie also made a f**king fortune – so f**k you!”
Jamie Lee Curtis says that she’s seen her viral ‘Halloween’ trauma meme:
“I’ve seen the fucking meme so don’t worry,” pic.twitter.com/UaWKtKxQCG
— Pop Crave (@PopCrave) October 11, 2022
The upcoming Halloween Ends will be the final time Curtis appears in the long-standing horror movie franchise.
Curtis explained that she got involved in the recent films after her “godson” Jake Gyllenhaal said writer-director David Gordon Green was keen to create a reboot.
She said Green wanted to explore the impact that Myers had on the trajectory of Strode’s life.
She said at Comic Con: “David Gordon Green sent me a script where he said: ‘I think Laurie’s been spending 40 years living behind barbed wire, emotionally, physically, spiritually. That’s her only purpose in life, at the expense of her daughter and her granddaughter, she knows Michael Myers is coming back’.
The actor told Entertainment Tonight in April that she thought the ‘trauma’ meme was “fantastic”, saying that film gave an insight into what happens to the characters in a horror movie once the terror has ended.
Curtis said that the 2018 film reflected how Myers’ campaign of violence raged on within Strode over the decades.
She added it “coincided” perfectly with the #MeToo movement’s determination to highlight the lasting effects trauma has on survivors of abuse and violence.
Curtis said elsewhere in the New York Comic Con interview that she felt fans connected with Strode as she represented “pure innocence” and “kindness”.
She said fans came to “care” for Strode (and her as the actor playing the beloved character) because she comes into “conflict and collision with Michael Myers, who is the epitome of evil”.
“When I say you guys have cared for me – you have carried her, you love her, you have loved [her] – but you have to know, and I appreciate that, at this point, Jamie and Laurie have become woven together,” Curtis explained. “There is no separation.”
She continued: “I wouldn’t have a career. I wouldn’t have a family. Everything comes from you loving her.”
Halloween Ends opens in theatres across the UK on 14 October.
