Jamie Lee Curtis. Photo by Michael Kovac/Getty Images for AARP.
AARP The Magazine announced today that Jamie Lee Curtis will receive the 2022 Movies for Grownups® Career Achievement Award. Curtis — a critically acclaimed actress across film and television; a recipient of two Golden Globe® Awards, a British Academy Film Award, a People’s Choice Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame; an Emmy® nominee; and the winner of the Golden Lion Career Honorary Award at the 78th Venice International Film Festival — will be honored at the 21st annual Movies for Grownups® (MFG) Awards ceremony on Saturday, January 28, 2023, in Beverly Hills, California.
“Jamie Lee Curtis’ longstanding, ever-increasing career shatters Hollywood’s outmoded stereotypes about aging, and it exemplifies what AARP’s Movies for Grownups program is all about,” said AARP CEO Jo Ann Jenkins. “We are delighted to honor Curtis, who at 19 became an iconic ‘scream queen’ in Halloween, then grew up to be a master in comic and dramatic roles, too. She soars higher than ever this year, with her last Halloween movie and Everything Everywhere All at Once, which may well earn her her first Oscar nomination at 64 — on top of the Movies for Grownups® Career Achievement Award, our highest honor.”
For more than two decades, AARP’s Movies for Grownups program has championed movies for grownups, by grownups, by advocating for the 50-plus audience, fighting industry ageism, and encouraging films and TV shows that resonate with older viewers.
Curtis was surprised when her 2018 sequel to Halloween earned over a quarter-billion dollars, proving the power of a grownup actress and the clout of her grownup moviegoing fans. “It broke the box office,” she told AARP, “and it starred a woman over 50. I was, like, ‘Wait, what?’ I didn’t see that coming.” The lesson of her success: “Look at what age you are. Laugh about it a little. And then shut up and do something! So that’s where I’m at in my life right now.”
Curtis will receive Movies for Grownups’ top honor at the awards ceremony, which will also include recognition for 2022’s best films and television, including best actor, best actress, best director, best picture/best movie for grownups, best TV series, best limited series/TV movie, and more.
She joins a prestigious list of previous AARP Movies for Grownups Career Achievement honorees, including Lily Tomlin, George Clooney, Annette Bening, Kevin Costner, Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman, Shirley MacLaine, Helen Mirren, Robert Redford, Susan Sarandon and Sharon Stone.
Jamie Lee Curtis is an American actress, producer, best-selling author and activist. Her 1978 smash Halloween launched her as a horror star (making her mother, Psycho star Janet Leigh, proud). Then she became an action-film star in James Cameron’s True Lies, a brilliant comedienne opposite John Cleese in A Fish Called Wanda and Lindsay Lohan in Freaky Friday, a sitcom lead in TV’s Anything but Love, and a star who helped launch the hit murder mystery franchise Knives Out. She earned $8,000 for her first film; so far, her movies have earned $2.5 billion.
Curtis is the author of 13 best-selling children’s books that address core childhood subjects and life lessons in a playful, accessible way. She is also the founder and CEO of the website My Hand in Yours, which is a charitable organization that offers comfort and celebration items, with 100 percent of every sale being donated directly to Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, an organization Curtis has been associated with for a very long time.
Iconic and beloved screen and stage performer Alan Cumming will return as host of AARP The Magazine’s Movies for Grownups Awards, which will be broadcast by Great Performances on Friday, February 17, 2023, at 9 p.m. ET on PBS (check local listings), pbs.org/moviesforgrownups, and the PBS Video app.
Special thanks to our funders, Barclays and RRD, for their generous support of the 2023 Movies for Grownups Awards.
