Jamie Lee Curtis on ageing in Hollywood
Hollywood star Jamie Lee Curtis has taken a swipe at society’s emphasis on youth, no more apparent than in her own industry.
The 59-year-old, visiting Sydney to promote new movie Halloween, the sequel to the 1978 horror classic of the same name, spoke of her dislike of the term “anti-ageing”.
“The term anti-ageing makes me crazy, the amount of marketing towards anti-ageing and making it a pejorative,” Curtis told The Daily Telegraph.
“(Ageing) cannot be the pejorative because it happens to everybody. It is like everything else, it is an evolution,” said the actor.
Curtis’ comments come at an apt time in her career. She has reprised her iconic role as Laurie Strode, who took on serial killer Michael Myers 40 years ago on Halloween. Decades on, her character, now a grandmother, is still deeply affected by their battle but is as strong as ever and more than ready for the next round.
The actress too, seems at the top of her game. The sequel is raking it in at the US box office, and not only is she a formidable performer in the film, but it was really Curtis doing many of the fight scenes too.
“I am sitting here in my very nice red suit but this movie was obviously not a glamorous job and I am grateful that I get that opportunity,” she admitted to the publication. “Every fight is me.”
“I am fit but I am not a gym rat. It is just what we do. It is the nature of the beast — it is physical and it is painful. I cracked a rib, that is what happens.”
But Curtis, the daughter of Janet Leigh – who memorably starred in another iconic horror Psycho – and matinee idol Tony Curtis, has previously acknowledged her “struggle with my own self-esteem” when it comes to her body. She says she’s found a way to deal with it.
“So I have a big secret: I don’t look in the mirror,” Curtis told Good Housekeeping in a recent interview.
“I’m a 60-year-old woman. I am not going to look the same as I used to, and I don’t want to be confronted by that every day! When I get out of the shower, I have a choice: I can dry myself off looking in the mirror, or I can dry myself off with my back to it. I turn my back to the mirror and I feel great!”
The actress, who also counts children’s author, entrepreneur and budding screenwriter on her resume, has an inspiring message about chasing and realising creative passions saying she has “no time to waste”.
“On the very clear passage of 50s to 60s, I have no time to waste,” said Curtis. “None. If you have creative ideas and you don’t bring them out into the world in some way before you go, that is a tragedy.”
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