Jamie Lee Curtis Reveals the Secret to Her 40-Year Marriage with Christopher Guest: 'Stay on the Bus'

The actress, who won her first Emmy on Sept. 8, said the key is "perseverance, patience, gentleness — and a really good dose of hatred"

Jamie Lee Curtis is getting candid about how she and husband Christopher Guest make their marriage work.

The 65-year-old actress told Entertainment Tonight that the secret to the couple's lasting union — they will celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary in December — is that "you don't leave."

"I'm sober for a long time, and we have a phrase in recovery: 'If you stay on the bus, the scenery will change.' And that's marriage," she said, before explaining how her relationship with Guest, 76, ebbs and flows, even moment to moment.

"It's like, all of a sudden you literally want to hate each other and then the next day it's a pretty sunny day and the dog does something cute or your child does something cute and you look at each other like, 'Aww, gosh.' And then you're on another track," she told ET.

"So I think perseverance, patience, gentleness — and a really good dose of hatred," the Freaky Friday star added.

Related: Jamie Lee Curtis and Christopher Guest's Photos Throughout the Years

Curtis then shared how she and Guest were interviewed by Marlo Thomas and the late Phil Donahue for their 2020 book What Makes a Marriage Last.

"They asked, 'What do you think the secret is [to marriage]?' And I said, 'Am I the first person that has brought up hating their spouse? And [Thomas] said, 'Uh huh.' I said, 'But that's the truth,' " Curtis recalled.

"You're going to hate each other. We're human beings," she continued to ET. "Forty years, you're going to hate each other, and so not leaving, not allowing that hatred to cause you to make some choice that you're going to regret — I think that's really the secret."

The Haunted Mansion star — who won her first Emmy on Sunday, Sept. 8, for her unflinching portrayal of matriarch Donna Berzatto in The Bear — recently marked a big milestone with her husband. On July 2, she posted a throwback photo on Instagram of herself and Guest to mark four decades since their first date.

Alongside the snapshot, which shows the couple holding hands in the 1980s, she wrote: "40 years ago today I went on my first date with Christopher. We married five months later and started to build our lives. Chance encounter. Life hinging. Children growing. LOVE IS LOVE!"

Related: Jamie Lee Curtis Says Husband Christopher Guest Encouraged Her to Write New Graphic Novel ‘Mother Nature’

The couple — who tied the knot on Dec. 18, 1984, after only five months of dating — share two children: Annie, 34, and Ruby, 25.

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Curtis has previously opened up to PEOPLE about how she and Guest have experienced ups and downs in their marriage. During a 1991 interview, she said, “I don’t think we have an easy marriage. We have a difficult, but successful marriage."

Despite the difficult times, Curtis said Guest has always been a solid source of support for her.

“I feel safe when I drive up and see that [he is] home," she told AARP in 2021. "That’s the long marriage.”

“It’s the safety of knowing his car is in the garage, that I’m not alone,” she added at the time.

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