Jamie Lee Curtis Claims She Nearly Auditioned for 'The Exorcist'

Jamie Lee Curtis' breakthrough role came with 1978's Halloween as Laurie Strode, though, according [...]

By Patrick Cavanaugh

Jamie Lee Curtis' breakthrough role came with 1978's Halloween as Laurie Strode, though, according to the star, she was nearly involved with The Exorcist as the possessed young girl.

"When I was 13 years old, [a producer] called my mother and said, 'Will you let Jamie audition for a movie?'" Curtis confessed to Entertainment Weekly. "My mother said, 'No.' The movie was The Exorcist."

Even if she might not have scored the role in the film, The Exorcist still played a big part of her life.

Curtis recalled, "We had a house that actually had a screening capability and we screened The Exorcist for my fifteenth birthday, for my friends. It scared me so badly that my friends would taunt me in school."

While fans are left wondering how the film would have been different if Curtis played the character that Linda Blair brought to life, the film's director, William Friedkin, claimed that this anecdote wasn't accurate.

After sharing a report of Curtis' comments, Friedkin added, "This is totally untrue."

There are a number of different situations in which these contradicting reports could be accurate, as a producer could have called asking about Curtis' interest without Friedkin knowing, or it's possible that Curtis' mother (Psycho star Janet Leigh) wasn't entirely truthful in relaying this information to her daughter.

Fans can only ever wonder what The Exorcist could have looked like with Curtis in the role, but the actress herself even felt like a different character in Halloween would have been a better fit for her own personality.

"I, quite frankly, should have been cast in the smart ass [role]," Curtis shared with TooFab, noting that she ultimately got to play "a full character" as opposed to being cast to merely model a "cute pair of jeans."

She added, "The fact that [director John Carpenter] cast me as the intellectual, thinking, quiet girl, at a time when people asked me what size jeans I wore, made me understand that I was an actress and really what it is, is I became an actress."

Fans can see Curtis return to the iconic role when the new Halloween hits theaters on October 19th.

Do you wish that Curtis would have starred in The Exorcist? Let us know in the comments below or hit up @TheWolfman on Twitter to talk all things horror and Star Wars!

[H/T Entertainment Weekly]

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