8 Actors Who Scared Other Actors So Much They Forgot Their Lines
7. Linda Blair Scared Max Von Sydow - The Exorcist
Much as we think of 12-year-old Linda Blair as being the most vulnerable performer on the set of William Friedkin's The Exorcist, as it turns out she ended up putting the frighteners on one of her considerably older, more venerated co-stars.
While shooting the film's iconic exorcism sequence, Blair's delivery of possessed Regan's expletive-laced dialogue disturbed screen legend Max von Sydow - who played Father Lankester Merrin - enough that he indeed forgot himself mid-take.
Given that von Sydow was a veteran screen actor of almost 25 years at the time of The Exorcist, and had worked on an array of challenging projects during that period, the idea of him being left genuinely unnerved by a 12-year-old girl is unexpected to say the least.
The Academy was similarly impressed, though, as Blair went on to receive a Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomination, making her one of the youngest acting nominees in Oscar history.