Jamie Lee Curtis Receives Honorary AFI Doctorate: “I Am Representation of the Underachiever Who Has Achieved”

A little over a year after landing her first Oscar, and a month after earning her second-ever Emmy nomination for her role in The Bear, Jamie Lee Curtis can now add “doctor” to her long list of accomplishments.

The star was presented with an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts by the American Film Institute at the film school’s class of 2024 commencement ceremony on Saturday. Halloween director John Carpenter was on hand to present her with the honor, noting, “We did Halloween, and it made all of us famous, but Jamie Lee especially. She became the queen of horror movies; I’m not sure she wanted that. I’ve watched Jamie’s career through the years and watched her grow as an actress, and finally, finally, she won an Academy Award — and rightfully so. She is an amazing talent.”

Upon taking the podium at the TCL Chinese Theatre, an emotional Curtis told the crowd, “The first thing I need to say is thank you, John Carpenter, for my life. Thank you for my entire life, John.”

She proceeded to acknowledge, “I’m not supposed to be here,” explaining how she was not a good student, and “today you’d diagnose me with something, but then I just didn’t learn. I couldn’t figure it out. And somehow I ended up in an institution of higher learning with my 840 combined SAT scores and my D-plus average.”

“I am, for you graduates, the representation of the underachiever who has achieved. 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,” the Everything Everywhere All at Once star said of her mother Janet Leigh and father Tony Curtis.

Curtis also noted that she doesn’t “pretend to be an intellectual” and doesn’t consider herself a cinephile but is rather a fan of movies. She recalled trying to make a horror movie, which she wrote and directed, on a Super 8 camera “about a housewife who was eaten by her house plant. I swear I shot it.” The star added, “You don’t have to have a degree to be an artist. It helps to have knowledge, but it is not a requirement. I am the representation of an accidental artist, and yet I stand fully in my body, in my mind, in my soul, as one now.”

She continued with some advice to the graduates, telling them that their individual minds were the most precious thing and to “let it be free, let it express itself, because when you express yourself freely, you end up becoming John Carpenter, and then you end up changing the world and changing the lives of people like me.”

Curtis closed with encouragement 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.”

With the honorary doctorate, Curtis joins an esteemed group of past AFI recipients, including Angela Bassett, Kathryn Bigelow, Mel Brooks, Carol Burnett, Clint Eastwood, Nora Ephron, Jodie Foster, Kathleen Kennedy, Spike Lee, David Lynch, Helen Mirren, Rita Moreno, Gina Prince-Bythewood, Paul Schrader, Quentin Tarantino, Lily Tomlin, Cicely Tyson, John Williams and Michelle Yeoh.