JAMIE Lee Curtis once believed her Hollywood career was quietly coming to an end — and that the hit comedy Freaky Friday would be her final curtain call.
The Oscar-winning actress revealed that when she filmed the beloved 2003 movie, she genuinely thought it might be the last major role she’d ever land.
Speaking to Page Six, Curtis admitted she felt the industry had already started to move on from her.
At the time, the star — now 67 — said she believed she was simply aging out of Hollywood.
She had grey hair, was in her 40s, and worried she didn’t fit the industry’s narrow expectations anymore.
But two decades later, Curtis would prove that assumption spectacularly wrong.
In 2023 she won her first Academy Award for her scene-stealing performance in Everything Everywhere All at Once — a moment that crowned one of the most unlikely late-career renaissances in Hollywood.
Curtis told Page Six her mindset began to shift when she started taking control of her own career instead of waiting for roles to come her way.
“Until recently, I was not in charge of creating my own work,” she explained at the premiere of her new Amazon series Scarpetta. “I was always at the mercy of someone else hiring me.”
That changed dramatically when she returned to one of her most iconic roles — Laurie Strode — in the 2018 revival of the Halloween franchise.
The horror sequel was a huge success and, according to Curtis, gave her the leverage she needed to reshape her career.
“It gave me enough of a platform to create a business where I could be my own boss,” she told Page Six.
Curtis also said she has always been realistic about the brutal realities of Hollywood — something she learned early from her famous parents.
Her father was screen legend Tony Curtis, while her mother was Janet Leigh, the star of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.
“I’m a practical person,” she said. “I’ve known the industry for a very long time.”
Curtis described the film business as both ageist and misogynistic, adding that even major stars can suddenly find themselves pushed aside.
“My parents were in an industry where they were more famous than I will ever, ever be, and the industry rejected them at a certain point,” she told Page Six.
Yet Curtis has now built one of the most impressive late-career runs in Hollywood.
Alongside her Oscar win, she has appeared in the smash TV hit The Bear, returned for a Freaky Friday sequel and now stars alongside Nicole Kidman in the upcoming Prime Video thriller series Scarpetta, based on the bestselling Patricia Cornwell novels.
Not bad for someone who once thought her career had already ended.
