Actor: Jamie Lee Curtis

Jamie Lee Curtis was cast in Halloween partly because her mother was Janet Leigh, which made the casting a piece of horror-history commentary, and the term scream queen attached to her immediately across The Fog, Prom Night and Terror Train.

She then demonstrated comic timing nobody had asked for, in Trading Places and A Fish Called Wanda, the latter of which is one of the best farce performances of the period.

True Lies and Freaky Friday kept her working commercially, and she returned to Halloween three times across four decades, playing Laurie Strode as progressively more damaged.

She won Best Supporting Actress for Everything Everywhere All at Once at sixty-four, and has been open about her recovery from opiate addiction.