“I Don’t Know How to Levitate”: Linda Blair Had Some Very Practical Questions About ‘The Exorcist’

Before Linda Blair could terrify audiences as Regan MacNeil in The Exorcist, somebody had to explain how she was supposed to do all that shit.

Levitate off a bed? Turn her head around? For a young actress reading about those scenes, these were apparently some pretty important qualifications she was missing.

In a conversation on The Magnificent Others, hosted by Billy Corgan, Blair recalled trying to understand exactly what would be expected of her in William Friedkin’s horror classic. The episode originally aired in December 2025, and this particular memory is a wonderful reminder of how differently a child might process the material.

“As a 13-year-old, you’re reading, okay, I don’t understand all of this. I’m Protestant, so I wasn’t raised Catholic, so it didn’t mean anything to me,” Blair explained.

The religious context and language were confusing enough. But then there were the physical requirements.

“I’m not trained to jump up and down off the bed. I’m not trained to levitate. I’m not trained to turn my head around.”

She adds: “Seriously, Billy, when kids are young, they don’t understand things, and people forget this. How can they?”

Blair recalled going into a meeting with Friedkin, whom she also calls Billy, and being invited to ask questions.

“Well, for me, I don’t know how to levitate. I don’t know how to turn my head around,” she remembered telling him.

His response, as Blair recounts it: “Oh, honey, those are called special effects.”

Even then, she said, “I still don’t have a clue what was going on.”