That is still hot to trot, 60- year old award-winning actress Jamie Lee Curtis talking to Good Housekeeping for its October issue (on newsstands September 11). It has been 40 years since she made her film debut in the critically-acclaimed Halloween and she hasn’t slowed down since. About to celebrate her 60th birthday, Curtis sits down and shares her secrets on living life to the fullest, being confident in your own skin and becoming the happiest version of yourself at any age.
Here’s some:
On her current life philosophy of “If not now, when?”: “On the very clear passage of 50s to 60s, I have no time to waste. 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.”
On getting fired from the TV series adaptation of Operation Petticoat: “I got fired, along with 12 other actors. I was devasted; I thought it was the end of my life. But had I not been fired, I would not have been able to go up for the movie Halloween – which basically gave me the life I have today.”
On constantly reinventing herself: “I am a constant editor. I shed people, I shed clothing, I shed possessions, I shed ideas. The biggest thing I’ve shed is my own limitations and perception of who I am. How can I expect my agent to think of me in a different way if I don’t think of me in a different way? Is he (her agent) going to wake up and say, ‘That Jamie Lee is smart – she should write a screenplay’? Not going to happen! It has to come from me. And even if I stumble in my pursuit, that’s OK. We are all looking for a fast track to enlightenment, but it’s sweat equity, sweat equity, sweat equity. I got sober 20 years ago. That was a massive reemergence.”
On why she doesn’t look at herself in the mirror: “I don’t know if men wake up, look in the mirror and hate themselves. Most women do. So I have a big secret: I don’t look in the mirror. 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 the mirror. I turn my back to the mirror, and I feel great! I don’t want women to hate themselves, because I think women are extraordinary.”
On how her marriage has lasted over 30 years: “Don’t leave. There’s a recovery phrase that says, ‘Stay on the bus…the scenery will change.’ You think you’re having a bad week, but stay on the bus, because one of these days you’ll look out the window and it’ll be beautiful. I think it can apply to almost anything where you feel unhappy in that moment. I’m not a wild romantic. I’m a realist. I respect him. And I just don’t leave.”
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/entertainment/a22993869/jamie-lee-curtis-confidence-secrets/