The Exorcist Star Linda Blair Reveals Her Complicated Connection to the Horror Franchise (Exclusive)
Over the years, the actor has experienced a number of ups and downs due to the film.
For her performance as Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist, Linda Blair earned herself a Golden Globe Award as well as a nomination for an Academy Award, and she went on to reprise the role for 1977's Exorcist II: The Heretic and had a cameo in this year's The Exorcist: Believer. While there are a number of positive experiences she earned from the role, which includes amplifying her charitable work with the Linda Blair WorldHeart Foundation, not everything that has happened in connection with the role has been positive, as her involvement in the controversial film also saw her becoming the target of various organizations. Additionally, being such a young actor and bringing such an intense storyline to life during a much different era of filmmaking means even her firsthand experiences with director William Friedkin brought with it some unexpected challenges. The Exorcist: Deceiver is set to hit theaters on April 18, 2025. You can learn more about the Linda Blair WorldHeart Foundation at its official website.
"It's never going to go away. And how incredible that, years later, people are still so involved that they share the project, the movie with their friends, their children?" Blair recalled to ComicBook.com of being so closely intertwined with the film and its legacy. "It is an adult film. I actually rewatched it the other night it was on TV and I just wanted to refresh my memories. And working with Max von Sydow, working with Jason Miller, working with Billy Friedkin, and they did a tribute to Billy Friedkin and it was fascinating. It was 1973 when he did this interview talking about all his movies. That was the person I worked with, not the one 30, 40, 50 years later that people got to know and meet after he's doing operas and different things. He's a very precise director and he embedded a lot in me, good and bad, that were very difficult. The project was not easy."
She continued, "That was an extremely rare, unique novel that Bill Blatty wrote and bringing it to screen was not without a lot of complications. The industry didn't want the movie. They fought hard, they got it made. But there's a lot of things that went into that left ... There's a lot of trauma there. I'll write about that in my autobiography, if I can ever get the time, so people could better understand the journey I had to go through, and post, for me, how the public treated me, how the churches treated me, religious groups and how they run this country. They can love you and they can hang you, and it's very dangerous."
Blair pointed out how, even at such a young age, her acting and modeling opportunities were merely a pathway to secure the funds to be able to explore animal-related endeavors as an adult. She would go on to launch the WorldHeart Foundation in 2003. Even with her cameo in this year's Believer, Blair was initially involved in the project to help consult with the film's young stars, though her one scene as Regan allowed her to offer audiences some closure on the character.
"That's a lot that I learned from coming out of it and I had nothing to do with it," Blair confessed. "I hope that people realize I worked very hard. I am proud of the film."
The Exorcist: Deceiver is set to hit theaters on April 18, 2025. You can learn more about the Linda Blair WorldHeart Foundation at its official website.
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