On October 19th, Jamie Lee Curtis returns to Haddonfield, Illinois as Laurie Strode in David Gordon Green’s Halloween. We know this. These are established truths. There’s even a trailer. What we didn’t know, however, is that venerable Hollywood hunk Jake Gyllenhaal made it happen.
In a new interview with Variety, Curtis credited Gyllenhaal, who she referred to as her “unofficial godson,” for introducing her to Green. If you recall, Gyllenhaal worked with the filmmaker for last year’s Stronger, an experience he believes to be among his greatest, according to Curtis.
As Curtis explained it, Gyllenhaal tracked her down while she and her husband Christopher Guest were vacationing up in the mountains, which now has this writer picturing the Nightcrawler star in one of those snowcats a la Scatman Crothers in The Shining.
Naturally, Curtis agreed to meet Green, who reminded her of director John Carpenter. “They’re both laid back and don’t take themselves too seriously,” she added in the same interview. She went on to say that Green’s new film is “powerful,” “old-school,” and “terrifying.”
To her credit, Curtis also acknowledged that she’s revisited the role several times, including 1998’s Halloween H20: Twenty Years Later, which similarly found her going toe-to-toe against Michael Myers in a very empowering way as the forthcoming movie..
“H20 started out with best intentions, but it ended up being a money gig,” Curtis contended. “The film had some good things in it. It talked about alcoholism and trauma, but I ended up really doing it for the paycheck.”
This one? Not so much, as she argued, “We just went back to story and character. It felt like being on the original one, where no one was getting paid and we were just hungry to do the work.” Whether this pumpkin was worth the work, we’ll see this fall.
In the meantime, subscribe to Halloweenies, Consequence of Sound’s limited series podcast that slices through one Halloween movie a month, all leading up to the highly anticipated sequel. There will be tricks, there will be treats, and, yes, there will be Michael.
Stream their complete breakdown of the new trailer below:
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