John Carpenter’s Halloween works very well as a one-off. But we live in a world where success leads to sequels, so now we have 13 movies in the franchise. And throughout those 13 movies, particularly the earlier ones, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, and Halloween: Resurrection, we can now look back and see some fresh-faced stars who have gone onto even bigger things. Will some of the stars of David Gordon Green’s Halloween trilogy end up moving onto bigger things? It’s too early to say for sure, but things look bright for Andi Matichak and Halloween Ends‘ Rohan Campbell.
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What follows is a list of big names who starred in at least one installment of the Michael Myers saga early in their careers. It doesn’t have to be their very first film, but we’ll specify when it is.
1) Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween
Between Halloween and The Thing, it’s truly difficult to say which John Carpenter movie is his best. What isn’t difficult to pinpoint is just how important Halloween was to Jamie Lee Curtis’ career trajectory. Even as the daughter of Tony Curtis and Janet Leigh, it’s difficult to imagine Curtis being where she is today without Carpenter’s classic. Halloween was the first film Curtis ever starred in, and it really puts a lot on a first-time star’s shoulders. She knocks the role of Laurie Strode out of the park, first playing her as shy but sweet before really selling her terror at this masked man who has picked off her friends.
Curtis stuck with horror (and often Carpenter) for about five years, starring in The Fog, Prom Night, Terror Train, Halloween II, and the underrated Roadgames before branching out of the genre with 1983’s Trading Places. But that hasn’t kept her from coming back to the Myers saga, as she returned for a vocal cameo in Halloween III: Season of the Witch (okay, that’s not technically part of the Myers saga) then came back to lead Halloween H20: 20 Years Later. And, while Halloween: Resurrection unceremoniously killed her off in its opening minutes, she still came back to lead David Gordon Green’s trilogy. Next up for Curtis is the legacy sequel Freakier Friday, which once more pairs her with Lindsay Lohan.
2) Dana Carvey in Halloween II
This is the one blink-and-you’ll-miss-it role on this list. But, yes, the reporter’s assistant right at the beginning of Halloween II is in fact Saturday Night Live‘s Dana Carvey.
This was Carvey’s first on-screen role ever. One year later, he joined the cast of the NBC sitcom One of the Boys but his real breakthrough came five years later with SNL. He has also, of course, played SNL character Garth Algar on the big screen in the two Wayne’s World movies, led the abysmal The Master of Disguise, and appeared in a number of Adam Sandler vehicles.
3) Danielle Harris in Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers & Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers
Perhaps even more than Jamie Lee Curtis, Danielle Harris’ primary claim to fame is the Halloween franchise. This is partly due to the fact that, after leading Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers and Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers as a child star, she then came back for Rob Zombie’s movies as Annie Brackett, the role originally played by Nancy Kyes in Carpenter’s original film.
After the fourth and fifth Halloween movies, Harris starred in quite a few other notable films as a child star. These included the Steven Seagal vehicle Marked for Death, Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead, Tony Scott’s The Last Boy Scout, and Free Willy. Outside the Michael Myers saga, her biggest role is undoubtedly voicing Debbie Thornberry on Nickelodeon’s The Wild Thornberrys.
4) Paul Rudd in Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers
Paul Rudd put in a few small screen appearances throughout the early ’90s, but it was 1995 that proved to be his (slight) breakthrough year. Not because of Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, but rather because of Clueless. We specify “slight” because, while he had roles in Romeo + Juliet, The Cider House Rules, and Wet Hot American Summer, it was really his role as Brian Fantana in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy that made his profile explode.
Rudd stuck with Judd Apatow comedies for a while, e.g. in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and I Love You, Man before becoming a superhero in 2015’s Ant-Man. Rudd continues playing Ant-Man and starring in comedies to this day, but he also leads the rebooted Ghostbusters IP and has the Anaconda reimagining on the way, too.
5) Josh Hartnett in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
Steve Miner’s Halloween H20: 20 Years Later is a lean, efficient, and stylish slasher, which makes sense considering about 15 years prior, he helmed Friday the 13th Part 2 and Friday the 13th Part III, two of the franchise’s very best installments. It’s also easily the most star-studded of the bunch.
In the lead role (outside Jamie Lee Curtis’ Laurie Strode, of course), there’s Josh Hartnett. This was the first film of Hartnett’s to hit theaters. After a horror laden 1998 (it was also the year of The Faculty), Harnett then starred in 1999’s The Virgin Suicides and had his profile expanded even more in 2001 via Pearl Harbor and Black Hawk Down. Prior to H20, he had only been in the short-lived crime TV series Cracker.
6) Michelle Williams in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
One of the most talented actors of her generation, Michelle Williams has been working steadily since the early ’90s. Her first notable movie role was playing the younger version of Natasha Henstridge’s Sil in Species, but her breakthrough didn’t come until 1998. That was the year she started playing Jen Lindley on Dawson’s Creek. It was also the year she co-led Halloween H20: 20 Years Later alongside Hartnett and Curtis.
The year after H20, she co-led the political comedy Dick alongside Kirsten Dunst, then starred in some other smaller movies before getting her big-screen breakthrough role as Alma Beers del Mar in Brokeback Mountain. She’s mostly stuck with impressive indie films (e.g. I’m Not There, Blue Valentine, Meek’s Cutoff, and Manchester by the Sea) but she’s also popped up in big studio films here and there, including Shutter Island, Oz the Great and Powerful, The Greatest Showman, Venom, and Venom: Let There Be Carnage.
7) Joseph Gordon-Levitt in Halloween H20: 20 Years Later
Before he joined the Batman saga in The Dark Knight Rises, Joseph Gordon-Levitt (briefly) became a part of Michael Myers’ legacy in Halloween H20. Now, this wasn’t his first on-screen role, far from it in fact, as Gordon-Levitt has been working since the late ’80s.
But it was only two years into playing his breakthrough role of Tommy Solomon on 3rd Rock from the Sun, so it’s certainly indicative of a star on the rise. And continue to rise it did, as the very next year he expanded his profile even more with the now-iconic 10 Things I Hate About You. Since then, he’s had either leading or supporting roles in major movies like The Lookout, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, 500 Days of Summer, Inception, Looper, and Lincoln. He also directed and wrote the underrated Don Jon.
8) Katee Sackhoff in Halloween: Resurrection
The two Rob Zombie movies are extremely unpleasant, and Halloween Ends is too much of a feature-length curveball, but Halloween: Resurrection is still undoubtedly the absolute nadir of the franchise. It starts with an awful twist and stays that bad throughout the remainder.
But, like H20 and any other horror film that came out in the wake of Scream‘s success, it has a few faces who were either moderately recognizable, about to become hugely recognizable, or at the very infancy of their careers. On the latter half of the coin there is Katee Sackhoff, who had been on small shows like The Education of Max Bickford, but was a year shy from jumping into her breakthrough role of Kara ‘Starbuck’ Thrace in Battlestar Galactica.
9) Tyra Banks in Halloween: Resurrection
As mentioned, Sackhoff was basically an unknown when Halloween: Resurrection. Tyra Banks, however, was recognizable via her work as a Victoria’s Secret Angel, which she started in 1997.
But she was a year shy of being a host and judge on America’s Next Top Model and three years shy of debuting The Tyra Banks Show. In terms of acting roles, she had been in eight episodes of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and Coyote Ugly. She had established her presence, but she’s only gotten bigger since Resurrection. In a similar category to Banks is Gen V‘s Sean Patrick Thomas, whose only big roles prior to Resurrection were Dracula 2000 and as one of the two leads of Save the Last Dance.
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