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Jamie Lee Curtis’ Guide to a Happy and Healthy Life

Hollywood icon shares her secrets to a happy marriage, growing older with grace and a life without regrets


Four decades after her breakout role in "Halloween," Curtis revels in being a grownup, celebrates 22 years sober and knows herself more than ever.

Actor Jamie Lee Curtis, 65, isn’t afraid to speak up. Last week, just a day after wrapping production on Freakier Friday — the much-anticipated sequel to the 2003 hit Freaky Friday — Curtis pushed back at paparazzi for leaking behind-the-scenes movie photos: “We have tried so hard to keep our story a secret and private until it’s time for release," she wrote on Instagram, reminding fans that the film officially hits theaters next summer. "But once in a while an image comes out, and it doesn’t tell you anything about the story or about what’s going on with the characters but it does show the joy and fun that we had." Along with the message, she shared an adorable photo of her embracing her Freakier Friday co-star Lindsay Lohan.

AARP has spoken to Curtis on multiple occasions over the years, and from the first conversation in 2008 as she neared her 50th birthday to our magazine cover story with her in 2021, she’s dropped wisdom on topics like marriage, friendships, parenting and healthy living. Here’s a roundup of her advice for living life to the fullest. 

Always wear comfortable shoes

“No more high heels. Too uncomfortable. Don’t need ’em. Gone.”

Keep surprising yourself

“My biggest concern is that I will calcify as I get older. I am a creature of habit: I wear the same clothes; I eat the same food; I am very regular in all of my activities. I can get lulled into complacency. Decalcification means constant evolution, where I’m constantly trying to shed skins and shed ideas. The same way that mid-century modern architecture was in the ’50s, I want to be as a human being. New. Different. Challenging the old. Function over frivolity. Clean living. Clean lines.”

Regret nothing

“Would I do a few things over as a mother? Sure. Would I do a lot the same? Sure. I’m not a big regretter — maybe a couple of hairdos in the ’70s.”

spinner image Jamie Lee Curtis in a still from Borderlands
Curtis currently stars as a wacky scientist in "Borderlands," an action-adventure film based on the best-selling video game.
Lionsgate Films/Courtesy Everett Collection

Put healthier things in your body

“It is very difficult to talk about people’s personal choices, and the addiction to having what we want when we want it. For instance, diabetes is an Armageddon. Where did this come from? It came from us. We need to live the example more. Giving up something that makes us feel good in order to keep us alive as a species.”

Seize the day

“Get out the tape measure. Look at what age your parents died, look at what age you are. It’s not long. Laugh about it a little. And then shut up and do something!”

Keep your friends close, but it’s OK if a few of them slip away

“I would feel completely inadequate without a good group of girlfriends. Still, I’m also learning that relationships with my girlfriends have to be fluid. I have friends whom I was closer with in my 20s or 30s than I am now. It’s not that I don’t love them, but the common links have unlinked a little. It’s important for me to create new relationships, and that’s hard.”

Change is good, especially in a marriage

“The secret is evolution. If you’re lucky, you evolve simultaneously. Chris (Guest, her husband) and I are in different jobs now than when we got married. He wasn’t a director; he was an actor. I wasn’t a writer; I was an actor. We supported each other when we made changes, even when there weren’t financial rewards. There were times I led, and times Chris led, but the disparity never felt like one of us had moved beyond the other.”

Love hard

“As we get older, we say goodbye to a lot of people. We say goodbye to our friends, to our family, and discover our capacity to love and communicate and have intimacy — real intimacy, not the superficial intimacy we had in our youth. Strip away the bulls---; be done with that. Ask yourself these two questions: Did I learn to live wisely? Did I love well?”

Never stop learning

“I live by the idea that what I know is that I don’t know very much.”

Less is more

“Getting older means paring yourself down to an essential version of yourself. It’s been an evolution. I’ve let my hair go gray. I wear only black and white. Every year I buy three or four black dresses that I just keep in rotation. I own one pair of blue jeans. I’ve given away all my jewelry, because I don’t wear it.”

Remember that you can’t take it with you

“What are we planning for, what are we saving for? Why aren’t we wearing those Prada pants to lunch with a friend, rather than saying, ‘Well, I only have those for a fancy occasion’? I now feel a freedom in living authentically in the moment and being open to whatever shows up.”

Find somebody you feel safe with

On the occasion of their 35th wedding anniversary, Curtis wrote a song for Guest. Its chorus repeats, “I feel safe when I drive up and see that you are home.” She elaborates. “That’s the long marriage. It’s the safety of knowing his car is in the garage, that I’m not alone.”

 

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