While Jamie Lee Curtis is now famously known as the Scream Queen, she recently revealed that her mom actually stopped her from making her horror film debut as a child.
During a recent appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show, the Oscar winner recalled a producer wanting her to audition for 1973’s The Exorcist. However, she said her mother, Janet Leigh, declined the opportunity for her then preteen daughter.
“He called my mom and said, ‘Hey, I’m producing the movie of the book The Exorcist.’ Will you let Jamie audition for it?’” Curtis recounted. “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.’ And my mother said, ‘No.’”
Looking back, the Freakier Friday star is thankful her mom protected her from child stardom and potentially any trauma that could have come from starring in a scary movie at such a young age.
“My mom really wanted me to have, thank God, a childhood, which I understand you didn’t get. You didn’t get that option. People didn’t step in and say, ‘No, she will have a childhood. She will have protection,’” Curtis added, referring to Barrymore making her onscreen acting debut at 7 years old in 1982’s E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.
While Linda Blair was ultimately cast as the possessed child, Regan, in The Exorcist, Curtis later made her horror debut at 19 years old as Laurie Strode in 1978’s Halloween. Throughout her decades-long career in Hollywood, she’s starred in numerous scary movies, including other installments in the Halloween franchise, The Frog, Prom Night, Terror Train and Road Games, establishing her legacy in the genre.