MIDNIGHT MASS 2009—Linda Blair on The Exorcist

The spirit of Christ compelled me to attend opening night weekend of the 12th edition of Midnight Mass. I'm speaking of the spirit of Peaches Christ, of course, who scored a sold-out crowd for her Saturday midnight screening of The Exorcist, preceded by a dazzling pre-show number "Peaches Will Funk You" (with such provocative lyrics as: "I don't care if your mother sucks cock as long as they be lining up around the block") and enough Regan look-alikes both on stage and in the audience to make your head spin. Idol Worship racked one up for the eternal battle between good and evil by hosting the iconic Linda Blair, who—in conversation with Peaches—revealed some sweet anecdotes about filming The Exorcist.

On the "Cold Room" Special Effects

It took many many months to—first of all—even hire me because of the special effects and the make-up. Billy Friedkin wanted to interview me many times over and talk to my mother and me to make sure I was mentally stable. He knew that was really important because he knew what he was about to do to me. Friedkin befriended my mother; they were like mother and son. The movie couldn't have been done without the friendship he had bonded—he was very crafty, that Billy Friedkin!—but, he befriended my mother and won her trust. She was never on the physical set.

The Exorcist took about a year and a half to film. As a child, I didn't know, "Is this my life? Am I always going to be trapped in this disgusting make-up?" So there I was 13-14 years old, sad and lonely, dressed as the little demon. We were filming in a building in New York and my dressing room was on the second or third floor. The sets were down below. [So on my off-time,] I'd go down and talk to the receptionist about her animals and I'd try and talk to another gal who was a Michael Jackson fan; I was a Donny Osmond fan. I was a child; I needed a friend. So I was looking out the glass doors at the front of the building at the people passing by. Nobody stopped me because at this point there was really no security. It was just me at these glass doors looking out.

All of a sudden there was a homeless person who went by the window. He's looking at me. I'm looking at him. He's looking at me. I'll never forget the look on his face [Blair mimics someone screaming in horror] and that's when I realized he was drunk and what he was looking at! Maybe I set him straight and he never drank again? Or drank a lot?

The cold room in The Exorcist [where you could see my breath] was a set where for three months we filmed in the morning when it would be zero degrees. By the time they lit it—the lights were so hot back then—it would be 17° above and then it would go to 30°. At 30° we would have to stop filming and turn all of the freezer fans back on. So we didn't really have "special effects" per se, like CGI breath coming out of my mouth. The room was genuinely cold and that was real breath coming out of my mouth. Billy Friedkin pushed the effects technicians to be the best that they could be. It was hard.

On the Guns On Set

Many of you have heard the stories about the guns and the swearing and the this and the that and it's all true. The guys were not allowed to have fun on the set. It was a small crew on a closed set. No one was allowed on. No one could see me. There were about 30 crew members who worked probably throughout but only 10 allowed on set at any given time.

Billy had these different guns hidden in different places. He would always tell me when he was going to shoot a gun off and it was really to get shock and awe out of the actors. He'd yell and scream at them, degrade them and do horrible things and I'd be lying in bed, y'know, [in her best demon voice] all strapped up. I'm watching with those contacts and that face and he'd be telling somebody off like you can't believe: "You low piece of shit motherfuckin' cocksuckin' son of a pig!" I'd be thinking, "That sounds pretty bad." He was purposely unnerving them and then he'd shoot a gun. Poor Jason Miller! His having a nervous breakdown on the set was pretty much real.

One day one of the crew threw a rubber duck back over into the set after Billy shot off the gun. It didn't go over well and everyone was fired. Everyone was fired all the time. Even I was fired. We'd all just walk away and a couple of hours later we'd all come back. It was just something Billy did. Every day. It was a lovely, loving set to work on. I'm lucky to be here.

On Audiences Being Unable To Disassociate Between An Actor And A Character

People would ask me way back then, "Have you seen the movie?" Or even today, "Well, you didn't see the film, did you?" Of course I saw the film! They never had a premiere for The Exorcist. They wanted to qualify for the Academy Awards® so The Exorcist was released on Christmas Day in New York City. That's the perfect Christmas movie, don't you think? But here was the reaction to the film: if I wanted to go anywhere, I couldn't go anywhere. When movies were released back then, there were 10 movies released, not 150 like today, so I was easily recognized. Let's say I was going into The Gap to buy some pants, and people would see me and truly be frightened. I was the Devil! You could see it in their eyes. They would back up and run. They would either run to me or away from me; it was one or the other. But I did represent that possibility of demonic possession.

On Being Outcast As A Child Star

Americans were truly ... surprised by The Exorcist. No matter where I went, I had to have a lot of bodyguards because I became a freak. Many many years ago I was very good friends with Michael Jackson and we would talk about how difficult it was to be pigeonholed. We would talk about prejudice and being misunderstood. During Michael's memorial the other day, it came to mind—knowing that I was coming to San Francisco, which has such a strong gay community—that we (Michael, myself, you) have all been pigeonholed into being misunderstood, have all experienced prejudice, have all been outcast.

In one film Elizabeth Taylor played my mother and she had been a child star. I went to see Patty Duke in Wicked and she also had been a child star. Each one of us had something in common. Child stars are taught repetition, repetition, repetition, do it the same, do it the same. Child stars are trained to be like little machines. Adult stars don't learn the same way.

Cross-published on Twitch.

07/14/09 UPDATE: "Let Peaches Funk You" is now up on YouTube:



Also, here is further backstory on Linda's being cast in The Exorcist and the 25th anniversary roadshow:

MIDNIGHT MASS 2009—The Evening Class Interview With Joshua Grannell

Joshua Grannell (aka Peaches Christ) and I met up at the Duboce Park Café the Monday after Pride Weekend. As Peaches, Joshua had survived his Pilsner pork pull; an event he agreed to in support of his beloved BLT community. "Every year," Joshua admitted, "Peaches seems to do less and less [at Pride] in an attempt to reserve energy for the next eight weeks [of Midnight Mass]." Being that it's now official that this is the last year of Midnight Mass at the Bridge Theatre ("Peaches Christ: R.I.P."), I felt it compulsory to find out what's up. Although our conversation was primarily to serve my upcoming Fangoria article on Joshua's recently completed first feature All About Evil (I'll let you know when that hits the newsstands), I took time to probe about the summer swan song of the 12th season of Midnight Mass.

* * *

Michael Guillén: As Midnight Mass launches into its 12th Summer season, will there be any preferential glimpses into All About Evil?

Joshua Grannell: There is a trailer being made for All About Evil. It's going to be cool! The first people to see the trailer will be at one of the Midnight Mass shows this summer. We'll show it there before we even put it on line. The first look at the trailer will happen at one of the shows, though I can't say exactly when yet because that depends on the delivery. But during the finale of this year's Midnight Mass, it seems so appropriate to have Elvira and Peaches present the world, our world, the Midnight Mass world, with a sneak peek of at least one scene from the movie.

Guillén: What I find intriguing is your professional awareness of a measure of scale. The artistic project of Midnight Mass has its unique and appropriate scale; but, the scale of the film All About Evil is much larger and cannot be contained by Midnight Mass. Thus, it only makes sense to me that—though it might seem that All About Evil should premiere at Midnight Mass—it somehow is not appropriate to scale. A trailer at Midnight Mass, however, sounds just right.

Grannell: Being a cult film aficionado and someone who champions cult movies, we've not yet even released the film and people refer to it as something cult. That drives me nuts because we don't deserve that yet. We aren't a cult film. We're attempting to someday hopefully be a true cult movie—that would be wonderful—but, you can't make a cult movie; it becomes a cult movie. If the fans decide to embrace All About Evil and put it up on a pedestal and watch it over and over again, then maybe sometime down the line we can refer to it as a cult movie. But it's not a cult movie yet. It's brand-new and it needs to find its audience. The movies that we screen at Midnight Mass are tried and true, beloved films; but, as a segue into this feature film, you're right, yes, a trailer seems wholly appropriate. Maybe someday we'll be able to create a Midnight Mass presentation out of All About Evil; but, I would much rather have that be after people have embraced the film and decided to love it and understand it, y'know?

Guillén: I have to ask the obvious question because some people were upset when they heard the news that this is the last year of Midnight Mass at The Bridge. Was it your decision to discontinue Midnight Mass? Was it the theater's? What's happened that Midnight Mass is now shifting away from The Bridge?

Grannell: Yes, it was my decision, along with the group of people who created Midnight Mass 12 years ago. While making All About Evil, we had to start prep for this season and had to table everything until we were done shooting the film. Usually, we would have been booking movies, powwowing, creating a marketing campaign, prepping for the summer; but, we didn't have time because we were working on All About Evil. When we finally sat down to do it, there was this sense of exhaustion, a feeling of frustration, and the heaviness of having done something for 11 years, and racking our brains to keep it fresh, new, exciting and interesting and relevant not just for the fans but one another. I always said that once it stopped being fun, we would figure out a way to rechallenge, repurpose, redo it, revamp it.

We all looked at each other and I said, "There's something about this season that feels like maybe this is the last one?" Everyone nodded in agreement. It has nothing to do with anything other than that we've done it for 12 seasons of 7 to 8 weeks of back to back shows. It's been amazing. We still love it. I think this Summer's going to be so special because we know this is the last. Part of it is that—in order to rechallenge and repurpose Midnight Mass—we've gone on the road, and we loved that; but, we want to do something new for San Francisco. All I can say is the plan is to create bigger and better shows with all that work and energy that goes into the pre-show, instead of tearing it down after one or two nights and having to do something new the next week; to really enjoy it, to savor it, to let as many audiences come to see it as possible, and to not feel so rushed and hurried. Lately, we've been hitting this wall with Midnight Mass in the Summer season where we can extend all this energy on a show like Barebarella and try to create this fun, theatrical experience, we do it for one night, and then those costumes get put away and I have to wake up on Sunday morning and start thinking about the next five shows.

What it's become really is that the shows have become so special and important to us that we want to take them to the next level; but—in order to do that—we have to give ourselves instead of a week to get ready for the shows, let's give ourselves four or five weeks and do the show for two weeks. That's what's really going on. We're not abandoning Midnight Mass, we're not walking away from Midnight Mass, we're strengthening it through rechallenging ourselves, trying something new.

Guillén: In its current incarnation, Midnight Mass is kicking off in style with your opening weekend Linda Blair doublebill! Rollerboogie on Friday, July 12 and The Exorcist on Saturday, July 13. With Blair there for both screenings! How did that all come about?

Grannell: Linda Blair has been on my list of dream guests for years. In the world of cult movies and the kinds of films that we love and celebrate at Midnight Mass, I have to say that's a very short list these days. So many of the fantastic people we would have liked to bring over the years are no longer with us and we've brought John Waters, Tura Satana, Mink Stole.... Linda Blair's a household name. She was so young when she started making movies. She's so vital and fabulous and made all these amazing incredible films that we love and she's just someone who's been on that list. We actually approached her about coming last year and she expressed interest. Unfortunately, we had a schedule conflict. The weekend I had open, she was on the East Coast. So we tabled the idea to see if we couldn't make it work this year and I was super-thrilled to find out that—not only are we going to be able to do it—but, she's excited about it.

Guillén: Have you met her?

Grannell: I have not. But she is friends with Cassandra Peterson and I'm pretty sure that Mink knows her too. That helps, y'know. It's funny how in this world of show business there are pockets of it that are quite small. When you're interested in certain kinds of movies, people know each other. I was able to get a good recommendation from Cassandra. Perhaps! [Laughter.]

Cross-published on Twitch.