How These Child Stars Feel About The Horror Movies That Made Them Famous

Although the special effects look a bit outdated, The Exorcist is still a terrifying, genre-defining horror film over 50 years after its release. Perhaps that's because The Exorcist goes beyond jump scares and shadowy figures. It delves into some complex religious themes, specifically exploring Catholicism, and it became the first horror film nominated for the Academy Award for Best Picture. And part of the film's power comes from Linda Blair, the actress who played Regan, a young girl who's possessed by a demon and has to undergo an exorcism. 

However, Blair had no idea just how much publicity the film would generate, and she was often asked uncomfortable questions that she didn't know how to handle. "When the movie came out, the amount of pressure that came down on me wasn't anything I was prepared for. Especially all the pressure the press put on me," Blair told Dread Central. "They thought I had all the answers about faith and Catholicism. I was not raised Catholic so I didn't have any answers, and I certainly didn't understand a lot of what was happening in the story either." To this day, she feels the press was way too hard on her as a teenager.

Actress Jodelle Ferland is well-known among horror fans. She earned recognition for playing Sharon and Alessa in the horror film Silent Hill, and later, she went on to appear in films like Cabin in the Woods and The Unspoken. 

While some might assume that acting in a horror film would be upsetting for a younger actor, particularly if they were fully aware of the subject matter, Ferland had the opposite experience. In fact, she said that in the early days of her career, she loved working in horror more than any other drama. After all, she'd never encounter paranormal problems in real life, so acting in these roles allowed her to challenge herself in a way that she couldn't while shooting other films.  "I got to be characters that are nothing like me. I'm not a demon child, I'm not dead," Ferland told Horror News. "When I got to play a ghost or an evil character, that was always my favorite thing because that was so different from me. What kid gets to act like that? Not many."

Directed by James Cameron, Aliens was the action-heavy follow-up to Ridley Scott's creepy 1979 thriller, and it reveals what happened in the aftermath of the first film. After escaping the xenomorph, Ellen Ripley is finally rescued, but now, she and a new team find a devastated colony with a single survivor, a young girl named Newt.

Carrie Henn, who played Newt, says that she really wasn't too nervous on the set of Aliens. For a young actor with no previous professional experience, working on the follow-up to Alien meant dealing with a ton of pressure to deliver an amazing performance, yet these high expectations didn't seem to affect Henn much. Perhaps this is because one person in particular helped Henn fit in with the rest of the cast from day one — Sigourney Weaver, who starred as Ripley. 

From the beginning, Henn was ecstatic about getting the chance to work with Weaver, who she was already a fan of after seeing Ghostbusters.  "She took me under her wings when we were filming, because I was so inexperienced. I can't describe my relationship with her, because she's more than just a friend," Henn told Wired. "What you see on screen is genuinely how we feel about each other." Henn says that she and Weaver are still good friends today, even though Henn left Hollywood to pursue a career in education.

When she was only nine years old, Lindsey Haun played Mara Chaffee, the leader of a group of ruthless alien children, in the horror film Village of the Damned. Although Haun had a great experience while filming the John Carpenter movie, she often wondered if she'd hurt her career by appearing in the film. 

After shooting wrapped, she began auditioning for new roles, only to find that directors viewed her as a "scary kid" and were hesitant to work with her because of her image. "It was a really weird time, and I was in this transitional phase, and for the first time, the rejection was starting to get to me," Haun told Westside People. She continued, "I started to develop an anxiety around acting, but I didn't want to quit." To bide her time, Haun began writing original songs and started a band called 7th Fall. Eventually, she began landing roles in TV films and bit parts in shows like Star Trek: Voyager, Malcolm in the Middle, and 3rd Rock From the Sun, and years later, she had a recurring role on the popular HBO series True Blood. 

Since playing Cole in The Sixth Sense, Haley Joel Osment has appeared in Pay It Forward, Silicon Valley, and The Boys, but there's no doubt that he's still best known for playing a young kid with the ability to communicate with ghosts and help them carry out their final wishes. Osment never anticipated just how successful the film would be. He admitted that most of the cast and crew knew that the final product would earn positive reviews, and they were proud of their work on set, but no one was really expecting Academy Award nominations and the massive cultural impact of the film. 

Thankfully, Osment says that his parents kept him grounded throughout the entire process, and since the film was geared towards older audiences, his classmates at school weren't really aware of his role in it. But once the film started getting lots of attention and people began quoting his famous line, "I see dead people," Osment realized that he was living "an unusual life." He did end up taking a few years off from acting full-time to attend college at New York University. 

Mischa Barton is most widely known for playing Marissa Cooper on the drama series The O.C., but she has also acted in several horror films. She had a small supporting role in The Sixth Sense, and later in her career, she went on to appear in The Basement, Ouija House, A Resurrection, and more. She says that for a while, she was "obsessed" with horror films because she never watched them as a child — she always got too scared. Eventually, she went through a phase where she couldn't get enough, and now, she names Rosemary's Baby as one of her favorite films.  

But Barton says that she thinks she's finally done with working in the horror genre. Playing these roles affects her deeply on an emotional level. "It's definitely a very draining genre to film. It's not lighthearted," Barton told Twelv. She continued, "It really wears on you to think about what these people go through and how much pain there can be in the world, and how much evil there can be."