Jamie Lee Curtis Was Almost Cast As The Lead In The Exorcist

While the new Halloween from the unlikely trio of David Gordon Green, Danny McBride and John Carpenter is enjoying the highest praise since the original and solid box office projections, Laurie Strode herself, AKA Jamie Lee Curtis recently revealed some interesting news while making rounds on her latest press tour.

Specifically, the 59-year-old admitted that she was almost in the role which made Linda Blair (Reagan MacNeil) famous in The Exorcist. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, she shared all the details, saying:

When I was 13 years old, [a producer] called my mother (Psycho star Janet Leigh) and said, ‘Will you let Jamie audition for a movie?’ My mother said, ‘No.’ The movie was The Exorcist.”

Since this initial story made the rounds, director William Friedkin has weighed in on Twitter and claimed it’s not true, but either way, I really don’t think Curtis would’ve made any difference in the role or done anything better or worse than Blair.

A lot of people will hate me for saying this, but Blair was essentially a mannequin in the first movie. Lest we forget, Mercedes McCambridge did the voice of the demon and without her work, would the film really have been as scary or had as much of an impact on pop culture? I don’t think so.

But of course, I could be wrong. After all, isn’t cinema filled with hundreds of casting choices people initially hated but then grew to love? I suppose so. At the end of the day, all we can really do is just enjoy the content and hope it entertains us enough to stand the test of time.

What do you think about Jamie Lee Curtis’ claim, though? Would she have done a better job in The Exorcist than Linda Blair did at such a young age? As always, let us know in the comments section below.