People always ask, “so what big actors have you met as a location scout?” And I’ll always lie and drop a few big names, because that’s obviously what they want to hear. But what I’m actually thinking about are moments like the time I was scouting a midcentury house outside LA…
The owners are showing me around, a husband and wife in their 70s. I’m talking about what to expect for filming, and then the wife sheepishly says, “I was in a movie once, a long time ago.” And I’m like “oh, cool, what movie?” And she says, “well, it’s The Exorcist.”
THE Exorcist? I stop taking pictures and she tells me how back in the 70s, she had a girlfriend who was dating someone on the production. And one day she gets a call from the friend asking if she wants to make a little money playing tennis with her in the background of a shot.
She says I wouldn’t remember the scene, but I absolutely know it, because it’s a pivotal moment where Father Karras is informed that a body was found with its head twisted completely around, news made all the more unsettling by the casual game of tennis echoing in the background.
She says I wouldn’t remember the scene, but I absolutely know it, because it’s a pivotal moment where Father Karras is informed that a body was found with its head twisted completely around, news made all the more unsettling by the casual game of tennis echoing in the background.
Now, I’ve met Ellen Burstyn before, and that was certainly cool too! But for some reason, these are the ones that stand out for me, chance encounters with the sort of people who, through sheer luck of the universe, find themselves forever immortalized playing a small role in one of the greatest horror movies of all time.
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