Jamie Lee Curtis Receives AFI Honorary Degree

Jamie Lee Curtis was awarded with an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts by the American Film Institute at the conservatory‘s commencement ceremony. The Oscar winner was the keynote speaker at the event, held Aug. 10. at the TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

“If you look at the paper, I’m not supposed to be here,” Curtis stated as began her speech. “I am the underachiever who just was awarded this incredible honor.”

Curtis’ resume would beg to differ: the actor, who won an Oscar in 2023 for her role in “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” has built an extensive filmography that includes the “Halloween” movies, “Freaky Friday,” “Knives Out,” “Trading Places,” “My Girl,” “A Fish Called Wanda” and “True Lies,” plus television credits like “Scream Queens” and “Anything But Love.”

“I am, for you graduates, the representation of the underachiever who has achieved,” Curtis continued. “I am an artist, I can say it to you today. I could not tell you that when I was 19 years old and didn’t know what I was going to do. I can tell you I became an actor by accident. My parents became actors by accident.”

“Halloween” filmmaker John Carpenter — who cast Curtis as Laurie Strode in the classic horror movie, marking her film debut — presented the actor with the award, saying she inevitably became the queen of the genre.

“Jamie Lee was and is an instinctive actress,” Carpenter said of Curtis’ performance in the 1978 film. “She has quite a pedigree, her parents were famous movie stars [Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis]. And she herself was, and is, a force of nature.”

When she first watched the pilot of FX’s “The Bear,” Curtis said she focused on one scene in particular: when Carmen (Jeremy Allen White) and Natalie Berzatto (Abby Elliott) talk about their mother briefly.

“I, alone in my house in Idaho, said ‘Oh! I’m going to play her,’” Curtis said of her guest star role in the series, for which she recently earned an Emmy nomination.

In her final words to the MFA graduates, Curtis told them to: “Stay open, stay free, stay engaged, stay absolutely enthusiastic. Don’t get lazy. Don’t think you deserve something more than you’re going to get. Fight for it. Work for it. Save the universe, please. God bless you all, thank you.”

The actor joins her “Everything Everywhere All at Once” co-star Michelle Yeoh, Robert Altman, Maya Angelou, Saul Bass, Angela Bassett, Kathryn Bigelow, Mel Brooks, Carol Burnett, Clint Eastwood, Rita Moreno, Spike Lee, Jodie Foster and more as recipients of honorary AFI degrees.

It’s a busy weekend for Curtis. On Friday night, she and Lindsay Lohan made a surprise appearance at the D23 Expo to reveal title of their long-awaited “Freaky Friday” sequel. (It’s called “Freakier Friday.”) On Sunday, Curtis will be back in Anaheim, Ca. to be enshrined as a Disney Legend.