Article

Father Karras speaks
reflects on religion, the devil and 'The Exorcist'

Jason miller by Theresa Conroy
Daily News Staff Writer

He snuck in late for the last show Thursday night, sitting in the back of
the SamEric theater Thursday to watch himself - for the first time in 25
years - expel a convulsing, spewing Satan out of little Linda Blair.

Jason Miller's dark hair is streaked with gray now. His chiseled features,
camouflaged by a mustache and goatee.

Nobody in the movie theater recognized Miller as Damien Karras, the young
priest from "The Exorcist." And nobody heard the series of wicked one-liners
he whispered to his friend, restaurateur Joe Varalli.

"To watch it with me is like an exercise in satire," Miller said Friday.

To do anything with Miller is like an exercise in satire. And intellect. And
philosophy. And religion. And all that is weird and scary.

Miller, 60, was raised Roman Catholic - "The IHM nuns for 4th to 12th grade,
the Jesuits, the Dominicans." He is fascinated by the sacred (God, miracles,
religious mysteries) and has an artistic crush on the dark side (evil,
Satan, death).

Does he believe in God? He hesitated, then said that, well, yes, he believes
in gods.

How about the devil? "Oh, yeah," he said immediately. No doubt about it.
Then Miller went on to recount his theory on why Lucifer defied God and was
kicked out of heaven.

This is a little spooky, coming from Father Karras.

But the most disturbing aspect of Father Karras' character, however, was how
very much you wanted to see him in his undershirt. Somehow, Miller made
celibacy seem extremely sexy.

He's still sexy.

He comes by this not only from the fact that he has a striking face and that
great hair, but because he has been blessed with that lady-killer ability to
look deeply into your eyes and see everything in your soul.

He's also a profound writer and an inspired actor.

"The Exorcist," re-released late last month, earned Miller an Academy Award
nomination. It also managed to scare the living daylights out of a
generation while simultaneously throwing evangelist Billy Graham into a
religious frenzy.

Now that it's back, with 11 minutes of additional footage, Miller believes
the movie is likely to scare a whole new generation.

Local theaters have been filled with screaming 18-year-olds and cringing
45-year-olds watching the exorcism of Regan MacNeil.

On opening weekend, Sept. 22-24, "The Exorcist" was sold out at the UA
Riverview, said manager Molly Kohler.

"It's like the younger kids, they laugh at some of the stuff.. . .They find
it amusing, you know, when she's in there with the cross.

"The older crowd is still horrified by it," she said.

All this amuses Miller - to an extent.

A Scranton resident, Miller has spent weekends in Philadelphia since early
last month, acting in "Barrymore's Ghost," a one-man play he wrote. The
play - a haunting combination of Miller's writing and acting talents - runs
through Sunday at Theatre Double, 1619 Walnut St.

Miller, who won a Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award for his play, "That
Championship Season," is more interested in talking about writing than about
acting. He'd rather dwell on John Barrymore's profile than on the vomit
scene in "The Exorcist."

"I see it in the land of objectivity," Miller said of the movie.

He sees Barrymore, however, a bit more subjectively.

"I thought it was the quintessential representation of a genius destroyed by
his own devices," Miller said of Barrymore's story. "I suppose it's kind of
an intellectual cliche."

In the play, Miller plays Barrymore's ghost, sentenced for eternity to haunt
theaters and face the ghosts of his painful life. It's an achingly vivid
portrayal.

"He did have those satyrs and he did have those demons, which were obviously
liquor and a deep sense of self-distrust," Miller said. "At the height of
his power, he feels himself going into decline."

He said he didn't have to go far for inspiration.

"Of course there's a lot of my life in there, and a lot of the actors I
know."

Miller seems more comfortable fighting Barrymore's ghost than continuing
that old battle with Lucifer. Watching himself in "The Exorcist," Miller
said, made him feel "disembodied."

"Somewhere between delirium and dream."

As the audience screamed and Linda Blair's body convulsed, Miller looked on
with detached amusement, thinking, "What did we have for lunch that day?"
and, "Oh, s---, that's where she flubbed the lines three times."

Until the scene with the crucifix.

"I forgot about the cross," Miller said of the profane scene in which Regan
masturbates with a crucifix.

"The cross, the symbol of everything, and, whammo," he said, simulating the
move Blair made in the film.

It spooked him a bit.

"I think the terror of the film, behind the gestures of the crucifix and the
outrageous and the shocking, you can look at two ways: The priests were very
heroic and sacrificed their lives by taking Satan out of her, or Satan
really wanted the priests and used these two guys," he said.

Miller, who hasn't thought much about demonic possessions since he filmed
"The Exorcist III" in 1990 (and he'd rather not talk about that), was
surprised that the 25-year-old horror flick stood the test of time on the
big screen.

"There are so many imitators," he said. "I was very surprised it didn't get
stale. I thought for sure it may get stale."

No one recognized Miller in the light of day, either, as he sits in the
lobby of the Sofitel hotel, wearing a yellow shirt, baggy pants and beat-up
sneakers.

Arranged on the glass table in front of his overstuffed chair is everything
he needs in the world right now: A pack of Marlboro Lights, an ashtray, a
lovely silver pen, a copybook, a fluted glass of Yuengling Lager and the
script he's writing for Showtime about his ex-father-in-law, Jackie Gleason.
Actor Paul Sorvino is slated to play Gleason, Miller said.

He talked about visiting Barrymore's grave at Mount Vernon Cemetery; the
success of his sons, actor Jason Patric and author Joshua Miller; how
comfortable he feels in Philadelphia; writing; acting; mutual friends;
Ernest Hemingway; and the beauty of a game of shuffleboard.

Finally, Miller turned his head back around to "The Exorcist."

"It enlightens people," he said. "It opens their mind to what is a religious
horror story:

"Why are we in the middle of this tremendous antagonism around the supreme
universal beings, their chess game? It's like Shakespeare says, we are flies
to the wanton gods. They kill us for their sport.

"That contains all the despair of the universe, that line."