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Adam Goldberg Talks THE EXORCISM: From Reuniting with Russell Crowe to Playing in the Horror Sandbox


Adam Goldberg sits in front of his camera
Adam Goldberg

By Shannon McGrew


In THE EXORCISM, Academy Award-winner Russell Crowe stars as Anthony Miller, a troubled actor who begins to unravel while shooting a supernatural horror film. His estranged daughter, Lee (Ryan Simpkins), wonders if he's slipping back into his past addictions or if there's something more sinister at play.


For the release of THE EXORCISM, Creepy Kingdom's Shannon McGrew spoke with actor Adam Goldberg (Dazed and Confused, The Prophecy). During their chat, they discussed everything from reuniting with Russell Crowe to channeling his own experience as a director for the role of Peter.


Hi Adam, Thank you so much for speaking with me today. It's great to see you reunite with Russell Crowe on-screen after you starred together in A Beautiful Mind. What was it like working together on this project?


Adam Goldberg: It was great. He reached out to me to do the film, and I was definitely there from the moment he asked me. Being able to play this character with Russell just felt incredibly symbiotic. It felt like it was going to be easy - easy is the wrong word, but easy and fun. When you work with [someone you know], who you can really trust, and you can bounce things off, it's like playing insanely great tennis; it's a great feeling.


Two men are kneeling down with one trying to have a serious conversation with the other
Adam Goldberg and Sam Worthington in THE EXORCISM

Your character, Peter, is the director of the supernatural film, and Russell Crowe's character, Anthony Miller, is starring. As a director yourself, how did you approach playing a director in this film?


Adam Goldberg: It was helpful. I couldn't really tell how much I was channeling my own sort of sublimated megalomania and how much I was channeling that of others I have absorbed over 30-plus years of doing this. It came rather naturally, and I don't know if that's a good or bad thing. It was interesting. When I read the script, I was like, oh, this reminds me a little bit of the film I was writing when I actually met Russell called I Love Your Work, which is about an unraveling actor. There was a lot of symbiosis that went on during the course of the film.


You're no stranger to horror, having been in films like The Prophecy and the series "Lore." What do you enjoy most about playing in this sandbox?


Adam Goldberg: I hadn't thought of it that much because I feel like if you're around long enough, you hopefully do a lot of different things. I guess I don't look at it any differently. I always want to ground that stuff in reality, and I think it always makes that stuff so much more fun, especially when something totally insane is going on around you. When I think back, it's been an opportunity to oftentimes do something different than maybe what my bread and butter usually is.


Often, when a possession film comes out, there's an eventual story about how the set was cursed. Did anything weird or uncanny happen while filming the movie?


Adam Goldberg: Maybe the curse is broken when the movie is about a curse? Maybe that's how the curse is broken? [Laughs]. The creepiest scene for me is actually my death scene, but it's not in the film, I don't think. It was shot on the stage where Brandon Lee got killed. That really freaked me out. I guess I'm more superstitious than I like to think I am. I remember when that happened; I was actually shooting The Prophecy, I believe, that summer, and there was a lot of stuff that went on during that film. That set felt slightly cursed, so I'm not immune to the concept. THE EXORCISM was a little uneasy [on set], but nothing weird happened.


THE EXORCISM is now in theaters.



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