Jamie Lee Curtis Is Glad Mom Janet Leigh Said No to Letting Her Audition for “The Exorcist” at 12: 'Thank God'
- - Jamie Lee Curtis Is Glad Mom Janet Leigh Said No to Letting Her Audition for “The Exorcist” at 12: 'Thank God'
Tommy McArdleDecember 27, 2025 at 12:09 AM
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Jamie Lee Curtis circa 1966; Linda Blair in 1973's The Exorcist -
Jamie Lee Curtis said she was asked to audition for 1973's The Exorcist but her mom Janet Leigh said no to it
Curtis, an Oscar winner for Everything Everywhere All at Once, grew up the daughter of actors Leigh and Tony Curtis
She made her big screen debut in a different horror classic: 1978's Halloween
Jamie Lee Curtis almost auditioned for 1973's horror classic The Exorcist as a kid, but her mom Janet Leigh said no.
When the Ella McCay actress, now 67, appeared on The Drew Barrymore Show Dec. 18, she recalled that a producer on The Exorcist named Ray Stark was a friend of her mother Leigh, who was a movie star in her own right for her role in Psycho and more.
"He called my mom and said, ‘Hey, I'm producing the movie of the book The Exorcist. Will you let Jamie audition for it?’ 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," Curtis recalled during her conversation with Drew Barrymore. "And my mother said, 'No.' "
"My mom really wanted me to have — thank God — a childhood, which I understand you didn't get. You didn't get that option," she told Barrymore, 50, who began acting at a very young age with movies like E.T. the Extra Terrestrial.
"And people didn't step in and say, 'No, [Drew] will have a childhood, she will have protection,' " Curtis added, as she complimented Barrymore on the care she shares with her guests on her daytime talk show.
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Janet Leigh and Jamie Lee Curtis on Sept. 29, 1979
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Curtis grew up as the daughter of actors Leigh, who died at 77 in 2004, and Tony Curtis, who died at 85 in 2010.
Linda Blair earned an Oscar nomination for the memorable child role in The Exorcist as Regan, a young girl possessed by a demon whose mother Chris (Ellen Burstyn) consults with Catholic priests on removing the entity.
Curtis eventually made her screen debut with roles on various television series in 1977 and made her own permanent mark on the horror genre with her big screen debut as Laurie Strode in 1987's Halloween.
Warner Bros. Pictures/Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty
Linda Blair in 1973's the Exorcist
Curtis previously told Entertainment Weekly that her mother denied her a chance to audition for The Exorcist back in 2018. At that time, she said the horror classic scared her when finally saw the movie as a teenager.
“We had a house that actually had a screening capability and we screened The Exorcist for my 15th birthday, for my friends,” she said at the time. “It scared me so badly that my friends would taunt me in school."
Curtis' latest movie Ella McCay is in theaters now.
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