Jamie Lee Curtis Thought She Was Going to Be Fired After Her First Day on HALLOWEEN
It’s hard to imagine Halloween (1978) without Jamie Lee Curtis. Her performance as Laurie Strode not only launched her career, it helped define the modern horror heroine. But on her very first day of shooting, Curtis wasn’t celebrating. She was terrified she might be fired.
When Curtis showed up on the set of Halloween, there was no easing into it. “Right away we were working,” she recalled. “There was no gentle entry.”
Her first scenes as Laurie were filmed on the very first day, the “speed kills” walk-and-talk sequence with her friends, the introduction of little Tommy Doyle, and that now-iconic moment where Laurie strolls down the quiet suburban street singing to herself.
It was a whirlwind start for the young actress, who was just beginning her film career. “The last thing we shot that day was me walking down the street, away from Tommy Doyle, singing the little song,” Curtis remembered.
“I remember saying to John, very clearly, I remember saying, ‘So, what do you want me to sing?’ He said, ‘Well, just make up a song.’ I said, ‘I don’t sing. Really don’t sing.’ He said, ‘Well, it doesn’t matter. It’s like an internal monologue—she’s not belting a country-and-western tune.’”
So she made it up on the spot. That soft, haunting little tune, “I wish I had you all alone…”, became one of the most memorable moments in Halloween. Looking back, Curtis called it “incredibly poignant” and credited Debra Hill, the film’s co-writer and producer, with capturing Laurie’s innocence and quiet longing.
But when the cameras stopped rolling, Curtis’s nerves kicked in. She went home that night to the house she shared with her roommate, hairdresser Tina Cassidy, and tried to process the day. The phone rang. Cassidy picked it up, turned to her, and said, “Jamie, it’s John Carpenter.”
For Curtis, that was the moment her stomach dropped. “In my day, and I’m sure it happens now, people get fired after their first day of work,” she explained. “You know, the director thinks about it and goes, ‘Uh, I made a mistake.’ That’s why I remember this slow walk over to the phone and doing that thing of like, ‘Um, hello?’”
Then came Carpenter’s Kentucky drawl on the other end of the line. “Hey, darlin’, it’s John. I just wanna tell ya how happy I am and how fantastic you were today. I just know it’s gonna be amazing.”
As you can imagine, the reassurance meant everything. “That just doesn’t happen. And that was all John Carpenter. That’s how it began.”
It’s a story that perfectly captures the spirit of Halloween and the partnership between Carpenter and Curtis. They were both young and hungry, taking a chance on a low-budget horror movie that no one expected to change the industry.
Curtis poured her heart into the role, unsure if she’d even make it through the week. Carpenter, seeing something special in her, made sure she knew she belonged.
Decades later, Laurie Strode and Michael Myers have become two of the most iconic figures in horror history, returning in sequels, reboots, and legacy films. But it all started with that first day, a nervous young actress walking down a sunlit suburban street, singing a song she made up on the spot, thinking it might be her last day on set.
Instead, it became the beginning of a horror legend.