20 Wild Horror Movie Casting Choices We Almost Got

Though Jamie Lee Curtis had a few sporadic TV parts in the late 1970s, her career-defining role was of course Laurie Strode in John Carpenter's Halloween, instantly cementing her as an all-timer scream queen.

But Curtis almost ended up making a name for herself five years earlier in another classic horror franchise - The Exorcist.

In an interview last year, Curtis revealed that her mother Janet Leigh was contacted by her close friend Ray Stark, a Hollywood producer who felt that Jamie might be a good fit for the film's 12-year-old protagonist, Regan MacNeil.

Curtis suspects that her "cute and kind of sassy" nature as a child likely helped catch the attention of Stark at an industry party, but when Stark asked Leigh if she'd let her daughter audition for Regan, she refused.

Though Curtis missed out on a role that ultimately landed star Linda Blair an Oscar nomination, she expressed gratitude that her mother "protected" her at this age, allowing her to have a childhood instead.