Production Designer Roger Fires on The Exorcist

Roger Fires is a production designer—”Nobody”, “Violent Night”, “Psycho Killer”—and one of the films he loves most is William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist” (1973). He first encountered it not in a theater but through a wall as a child in Brazil, told not to watch and so he listened in the dark. That experience kept him away for nearly twenty years. At thirty he finally watched it and fell completely in love—and the specificity of that arc is what makes this conversation worth your time.

Andy and Pete dig into what Roger calls the “unnoticeably good” standard: the refrigerated set, the spatial geometry, the window that marks two deaths and carries the film’s entire theological argument. They cover what makes Friedkin’s approach—dread over spectacle, religious drama over horror movie—still impossible to replicate, and Roger talks about his work on “Psycho Killer” and the “Scrubs” reboot along the way.

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Watch Psycho Killer: Apple TV | Amazon | Letterboxd

Watch The Exorcist: Apple TV | Amazon | Letterboxd

What to Listen to Next:

The Next Reel — The Exorcist—Andy and Pete’s full discussion of the film as part of the Ellen Burstyn series

Sitting in the Dark — Possessed!—Pete's demons-and-possession episode with Lester and Kynan of The Exorcist Minute as guests

Movies We Like — Kevin Conran on The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai—keep going with production designers on films they love

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