Jamie Lee Curtis Got to Explore Her ‘Very Dark Imagination’ with Her New Graphic Novel (Exclusive)

The Oscar winner has co-written 'Mother Nature,' which imagines an all-too-similar world where the world faces a climate crisis

Jamie Lee Curtis knows she has a habit of being prescient. “You know I invented Instagram,” she tells PEOPLE, only half-joking about her tendency to be ahead of the curve.

When Curtis was 19, she had an idea for a screenplay involving an existential climate crisis. “I wanted to know what would happen when Mother Nature fought back,” says the Oscar-winning actress, now 64. “It turns out I have a very dark imagination.” But her original idea, she remembers, was "very father knows best."

As it so happens, she is still ahead of the curve. "Just look at the weather today," she says.

After decades of keeping the idea on the shelf, Curtis was inspired to dust it off after buying a Karl Stevens illustration for her husband, filmmaker Christopher Guest, and chatting about it with the artist.

“Karl said, ‘That’s a graphic novel,’ ” she recalls over the phone during an L.A. heat wave. “And ‘graphic’ is how we would describe the violence against the universe that has been perpetrated by humans. It's graphic violence. And the graphic part of the book, by the way, is all mine. As it turns out, I have a very dark imagination, with a capital V and capital D."

Curtis says it was her co-writer, Russell Goldman, who spun her idea forward — and toward the maternal. "He really took the story in a different way, and reminded me that the story is called Mother Nature. And maybe it's time to acknowledge that mommy knows best."

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The result is Mother Nature, out Aug. 8. “I’m not gonna say that I timed it well, but it will have followed the hottest days on record,” she says. Though Curtis — who has daughters Ruby, 27, and Annie, 36, with Guest, 75 — is known for her role in the Halloween franchise, she has long said she hates being scared. “Right now, with climate change, I’m scared s---less,” she admits. “But getting scared gets my attention.”

Curtis hopes the graphic novel will inspire readers to make one small decision to help the environment, whether that be eating less meat or forgoing plastic use.

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“I’m not an activist the way Mark Ruffalo is. I am an environmental activist in the same way that I’m a trans activist,” she says. “This is in my home. It’s time to listen to mothers. I will be gone one day,” she says. “And while I’m here, I’m gonna make some noise.”

Mother Nature follows ecological activist Nova Terrell, who “wages a campaign of sabotage and vandalism” on oil giant Cobalt Corporation after witnessing her engineer father die in mysterious circumstances” at one of the facilities, according to a synopsis.

For more about Curtis, pick up this week's issue of PEOPLE, on stands now.

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