Five years before Jamie Lee Curtis made her breakout performance in Halloween, the scream queen nearly got her onscreen start in another horror classic.
The Oscar winner recently recalled her late mother Janet Leigh turning down an audition for the 12-year old Curtis to star as the young possessed Regan MacNeil in the 1973 William Friedkin-helmed movie, which was based on William Peter Blatty’s ’71 novel, after producer and friend Ray Stark wanted the preteen to read for the role.
“He called my mom and said, ‘Hey, I’m producing the movie of the book The Exorcist. Will you let Jamie audition for it?’” she said on The Drew Barrymore Show. “And at the time I was probably 12 and, like, cute and kind of sassy and I had some personality, and I’m sure he saw me at a party and was like, ‘Oh, she’d be funny.’ And my mother said, ‘No.’”
Curtis acknowledged that Barrymore was not afforded the same “protection” as a child actor, explaining, “My mom really wanted me to have — thank God — a childhood, which I understand you didn’t get. You didn’t get that option.”
Linda Blair ultimately landed the part of Regan in the film, reprising the role for the ’77 sequel Exorcist II: The Heretic (and even poking fun at the franchise with Leslie Nielsen in the 1990 parody Repossessed).
Linda Blair in ‘The Exorcist’
Everett Collection
With the Exorcist franchise releasing six installments over the years, as well as a 2016-’17 Fox series, Scarlett Johansson has signed on for the upcoming reboot from writer/director Mike Flanagan and Blumhouse-Atomic Monster.
