Michael Myers returns to Haddonfield in the latest Halloween, with a casting lineup that features original franchise star Jamie Lee Curtis. This new installment, out Friday, features actress Judy Greer as Curtis' daughter. With Greer joining the murderous universe, she shared what fans can expect to see and what it was like to star opposite Hollywood's favorite scream queen.
Halloween is directed by David Gordon Green, who worked with Danny McBride and Jeff Fradley to pen the screenplay. The movie takes place 40 years after the events of the original film, where Laurie Strode (Curtis) survived an attack from Michael Myers. In the new version, the serial killer manages to escape captivity and returns to finish what he started. Laurie, however, has been readying herself for this day.
Greer stars as Karen Strode, who is the daughter of Laurie and mother to Allyson Strode (Andi Matichak). Unlike Laurie, Greer's Karen has no interest in fighting her mother's battle with her murderous uncle.
"My character is trying so hard to push this world of her mother's away from her that I was like, 'Well, it's OK if I don't know every answer to every trivia question about Halloween because my character doesn't want to talk about Michael Myers," Greer, 43, told Newsweek. "She doesn't want to deal with this hardship that her mom has been dealing with her whole life. She's not going to take that on as her life story. Of course, that doesn't always get to be the case when we don't want to take on our parent's crap, right?"
Despite Greer's character's differences with Curtis's Laurie, the actress shared how she doesn't "know how you make this movie without her." Greer then explained how the Scream Queens alum "has so much ownership over the franchise."
"It is her. It's her struggle. It's her story," Greer said. "She's done many films and had so many other great performances in her career. This is an iconic character. So having her be a part of it and starring in it...That's a no-brainer. I don't know if I would have been as excited had she just had a smaller role or was a cameo."
So far, Halloween has succeeded in generating mostly positive reviews from critics. The horror thriller currently sits at 86 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. It also holds a 69 percent score on Metacritic. According to Variety, Halloween is slated to scare up $57 million to $65 million at the domestic box office during its opening weekend. Deadline, however, reported the film could earn more than $100 million globally in its debut.
Greer currently stars opposite Jim Carrey on Showtime's Kidding. She doesn't
typically dip her toes into the horror genre, but she explained why Halloween was "scary" to film.
"Sometimes I found myself wanting to make myself even more scared," said Greer. "There was the house we were shooting in. Then there [are] woods all around it. The other side of the woods was where they had our trailers. Sometimes just to scare myself extra, I would walk to my trailer by myself even though they had golf carts that would drive us there...It was helpful to get [prepared for the part]."
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Dory Jackson is a New York-based entertainment journalist from Maryland. She graduated from Randolph-Macon College—in May 2016—with a focus in Communication ... Read more
To read how Newsweek uses AI as a newsroom tool, Click here.
