Linda Blair starred as Regan MacNeil, the young girl possessed by a demon in the 1973 supernatural horror film The Exorcist. The actress won a Golden Globe Award and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her brilliant performance.
It’s been five decades since the film debuted in theatres, and Linda, who was 14 at the time, revealed that she never had the thought that The Exorcist would be a cult classic. The movie was commercially successful and earned $193 million during its theatrical run.
Linda shared her thoughts on ‘The Exorcist’
During a recent interview with Fox News Digital, the 64-year-old shared her experience on the movie set and how she handled the mixed reactions that came with the movie’s success. “For me, it was so not Hollywood. I had no idea,” the actress told the outlet. “Mom and I just thought, ‘Oh, you know, your project, if it gets a little commercial run, that would be nice,’ and that wasn’t the case. The case was it became an international controversial sensation around the world.”
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Linda pulled off a believable performance with her character in the movie, and many viewers believed she truly was possessed. To counter that, the movie studio sponsored her on a tour to prove to the public that she was a normal child in real life. “It’s a very intense movie. My hope is that people would realize it’s about good and evil, and that is playing out right now on the planet with the war in Israel, and we can do better,” Blair said. “We can absolutely do better.”
She pulled off her character against all odds
Linda further shared that she had to endure harsh temperatures to bring her role to life, as late director William Friedkin needed to project a sense of cold in Regan’s bedroom during key sequences, so we could see her breath as she spoke. “People forget that we didn’t have all of the incredible magic that we now have with filmmaking,” she told Fox News. “So it was 17 below in the morning, and then it was zero when we were filming and very uncomfortable. On top of that, the makeup was so cutting edge; pieces were glued onto my face and the contacts were very uncomfortable.”
The actress also shared that she faced difficulty with her script as she was reluctant to use curse words. “[Director] Billy Friedkin rewrote a lot of the script, my dialogue, and would tell me in secret the night before. I’d say, ‘Well, I can’t say that,’ and he’d say, ‘No, no, you can.’ So he’s the culprit behind all that nasty language, and I had to do it,” she added. “That was hard for me, because I wasn’t raised to be like that.”