Jamie Lee Curtis is no stranger to reinvention. The Oscar-winning actress has portrayed scream queens, action heroines, and sitcom moms over the span of her five-decade career. But as she prepares to return to theaters in Disney’s Freakier Friday, the 66-year-old star is speaking candidly about what may be her final act – on her terms.
In a reflective new interview with The Guardian, Curtis revealed that she has been “self-retiring for 30 years,” inspired by the painful trajectory she witnessed in the careers of her parents – Hollywood legends Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis.
“I witnessed my parents lose the very thing that gave them their fame and their life and their livelihood, when the industry rejected them at a certain age,” Curtis said. “I watched them reach incredible success and then have it slowly erode to where it was gone. And that’s very painful.”
For Curtis, those formative experiences shaped not just her perspective, but her plan. Rather than waiting for the roles to dry up or for casting directors to stop calling, she has long been strategizing an elegant exit from the industry.
“I have been prepping to get out, so that I don’t have to suffer the same as my family did,” she shared. “I want to leave the party before I’m no longer invited.”
While Curtis may be pondering her final curtain call, her career is anything but winding down. She reprises her iconic role opposite Lindsay Lohan in Freakier Friday, the highly anticipated sequel to the 2003 Disney body-swap hit. The film premieres nationwide on August 8.
In recent years, Curtis has also taken bold strides behind the camera, founded a production company, and even won her first Oscar – a long-awaited recognition for an actress long underestimated.
But even with the accolades and a packed schedule, Curtis says she’s more focused than ever on protecting her energy and legacy.
“I’m in charge now. I feel like a boss,” she said. “And I have no problem saying: ‘Back the f— off.’”
That confidence has been hard-won. For decades, Curtis felt boxed in by typecasting – often seen as the horror ingénue or comedic foil, rarely as the emotionally complex character actor she knew herself to be.
Her breakout guest role as Donna Berzatto on The Bear allowed her to explore new emotional depths. As the estranged, alcoholic mother of the show’s central character, Curtis delivered a gut-wrenching performance that earned widespread acclaim.
But for Curtis, the role was not emotionally draining – it was liberating.
“Here’s what’s traumatic: not being able to express your range as an artist,” she said. “To spend your entire public life holding back range. And depth. And complexity. And contradiction. And rage. And pain. And sorrow. That’s traumatic.”
She continued, “To have been limited to a much smaller palette of creative, emotional work – that’s the toll. The Bear was the release.”
Curtis credited The Bear creator Chris Storer with giving her the space to fully inhabit the character and trust her instincts. “The writing leads you everywhere you need to go. It was exhilarating,” she said. “The toll has been 40 years of holding back something I know is here.”
Still, the idea of bowing out gracefully remains top of mind for Curtis – a mix of self-awareness and a desire to protect her dignity in an industry that often has little use for women past a certain age.
While she admits retirement has been a long time coming, she isn’t shutting any doors just yet. Instead, she’s simply curating what’s next – and what she no longer has to do.
“I want to leave while I still love it,” she said. “Not when it starts to feel like a job I can’t quit.”
Curtis’s comments echo broader conversations in Hollywood about ageism, especially toward women, and the pressure to constantly remain relevant. For Curtis, choosing when and how to step back is its own form of power.
Even with an exit plan in mind, Curtis is enjoying the now. Between the buzz around Freakier Friday and the praise for her dramatic turns,
