History Trivia / TheExorcist

* BillingDisplacement: Creator/MaxVonSydow only appears in the movie during the prologue and the last twenty minutes, but is billed second, despite Jason Miller and Linda Blair's characters being the main focus of the film. The reason for this is likely because von Sydow was already well known, and Miller and Blair were screen newcomers.

* OnSetInjury: Creator/EllenBurstyn received a permanent spinal injury while making the film. In the sequence where she is thrown away from Reagan, a harness jerked her hard away from the bed. She fell on her coccyx and screamed in pain.

** Linda Blair later on developed mental illness that some excited people thought was demonic possession. It had more to do with cocaine and amphetamine addiction, common to Hollywood types. Her dramatic weight gain in the 80s was caused by a hormonal imbalance. She also can stand the cold a lot less than she did before the movie, since she had to wear only the nightgown on the refrigerated room set.

** Creator/AudreyHepburn was Creator/WilliamFriedkin's first choice to play Chris [=MacNeil=], and Warner Brothers supported him because of her good critical/commercial reputation with the studio, but she only agreed to do it if it was filmed in Rome. Creator/JaneFonda and Creator/ShirleyMacLaine were also approached. Fonda turned it down because she didn't believe in 'fairy tales' and thought the movie was "capitalist ripoff bullshit."[[note]](she later converted to Christianity, however)[[/note]] and [=MacLaine=] opted to do a similar, but less successful film. Creator/AnneBancroft was another choice but she was in her first month of pregnancy. She asked Friedkin if he could wait almost a year; he couldn't, and he also didn't think it was the sort of material she wanted to make while tending to a newborn. Creator/KarenBlack, Creator/CarolBurnett, Creator/LeeRemick, Creator/BarbraStreisand and Creator/RaquelWelch were also considered.

** The ''real'' reason Father Dyer is shaking while he's [[spoiler:administering last rites to Father Karras]] is because William Friedkin slapped his actor just before the take.

** Jason Miller was a stage actor who had never been in a film before. Creator/WilliamFriedkin cast him after seeing him in a production of ''Theatre/ThatChampionshipSeason'' and thought he "reaked of failed Catholicism".

* BeamMeUpScotty: In Spain, the movie was dubbed twice, in 1975 and 2000. Both times, the line "Did you see what she did, your cunty daughter?" was translated as ''¿Has visto lo que ha hecho, la '''cochina''' de tu hija?'' However, everyone remembers it as the cruder ''¿Has visto lo que ha hecho, la '''guarra''' de tu hija?''[[note]]A ''cochina'' is a female piglet and a ''guarra'' is a sow. Both are used to mean dirtiness, but the latter is also used more often for lewdness.[[/note]]

** According to TheOtherWiki, Creator/AnissaJones, eager to shed her childish public persona, tried out, but Friedkin thought ''Series/FamilyAffair'' was too close to the public memory, and audiences would think "Buffy" was being possessed.

** Creator/AudreyHepburn was Creator/WilliamFriedkin's first choice to play Chris [=MacNeil=], and Warner Brothers supported him because of her good critical/commercial reputation with the studio, but she only agreed to do it if it was filmed in Rome. Creator/JaneFonda and Creator/ShirleyMacLaine were also approached. Fonda turned it down because she didn't believe in 'fairy tales' and thought the movie was "capitalist ripoff bullshit."[[note]](she later converted to Christianity, however)[[/note]] and [=MacLaine=] opted to do a similar, but less successful film. Creator/AnneBancroft was another choice but she was in her first month of pregnancy. She asked Friedkin if he could wait almost a year; he couldn't, and he also didn't think it was the sort of material she wanted to make while tending to a newborn. Creator/KarenBlack and Creator/BarbraStreisand were also considered.

** According to TheOtherWiki, Anissa Jones, eager to shed her childish public persona, tried out, but Friedkin thought ''Series/AFamilyAffair'' was too close to the public memory, and audiences would think "Buffy" was being possessed.

* UnderageCasting: Creator/MaxVonSydow was only 44 when he played the much older Father Merrin.

* DuelingDubs: The film has been dubbed into Portuguese four times, with Newton da Matta dubbing over Jason Miller in all four versions.

* UsefulNotes/AFIS100YearsSeries:
** AFIS100Years100Thrills: #3
** AFIS100Years100HeroesAndVillains: #9 Villain, Regan [=MacNeil=]

* AFIS100YearsSeries:

* TroubledProduction: The film was a hellish experience that went over budget and schedule ($4.5 million and 105 days to $12 million and over 200 days plus 6 months of post-production!).
** Creator/WilliamFriedkin proved to be a PrimaDonnaDirector who [[BadBoss didn't care much for the cast and crew]] and intentionally made the set as hostile as possible in order to make the actors appear genuinely stressed on camera, even firing guns at random moments to make doubly sure that the actors were constantly on edge. During post-production, he disliked Lalo Schifrin's would-be score so much he literally took the tapes and threw them away in the studio parking lot, choosing instead to score the film to pre-existing music (most notably Music/MikeOldfield's "Music/TubularBells").
** Creator/EllenBurstyn complained that for the scene Chris is telekinetically thrown against a wall, the stuntmen were pulling her too hard... and Friedkin's response was a take so strong Burstyn suffered permanent damage!
** Massive air-conditioning units were brought in for the climactic exorcism, bringing the temperature on the set down close to freezing. Creator/LindaBlair had to spend the entire time dressed in nothing but a thin nightgown and developed a lifelong dislike of cold temperatures.
** To make it worse, there were strange events (such as the interior sets of the [=MacNeil=] residence getting burned) that led people to [[TheProductionCurse consider the film cursed]].

** The supposed curse continued even long after the film wrapped. A few years later, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Bateson Paul Bateson]], the real-life radiological technician who talks Regan through the angiography, was convicted of murdering a man who picked him up at a bar.[[note]]He has also been implicated in some unsolved serial murders at the same time, although the evidence connecting him to them is very thin[[/note]]

* WagTheDirector: Creator/EllenBurstyn agreed to doing the movie only if her character didn't have to say the scripted line: "I believe in the devil!" The producers agreed to eliminate the utterance.

** Vasiliki Maliaros had never acted in a movie before. She was discovered by Friedkin in a Greek restaurant. Her only acting experience was in Greek stage dramas. Friedkin selected her because she bore an uncanny resemblance to his own mother and William Peter Blatty felt she resembled his mother, too.

* BigNameFan: Film critic Creator/MarkKermode has named ''The Exorcist'' as his favourite film of all time, describing himself as "obsessed" with it.

* BigNameFan: Film critic Creator/MarkKermode has named ''TheExorcist'' as his favourite film of all time, describing himself as "obsessed" with it.

* BigNameFan: This is Creator/MarkKermode's favourite film of all time.

** The producers sought to have Creator/JamieLeeCurtis audition for Regan [=MacNeil=] but her mother Creator/JanetLeigh refused. Creator/KimBasinger, Creator/LauraDern, Creator/MelanieGriffith, Creator/BrookeShields and Creator/SharonStone were also considered.

* QueerCharacterQueerActor: Marcus is gay like his actor Ben Daniels. In season 2, the lesbian Verity is played by Brianna Hildebrand who identifies as queer.