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Time & Perspective Quote by Mercedes McCambridge

"At awards time, The Exorcist was nominated in 11 categories, everybody but the janitor was up for an Oscar. There was no category for what I did"

About this Quote

Mercedes McCambridge’s line lands like a punchline with a bruise underneath: the joke about “everybody but the janitor” doesn’t just mock Hollywood excess, it exposes a blind spot in how prestige gets assigned. The humor is classic insider gallows wit, but the sting comes from the last sentence, where she drops the mask and tells you exactly who got erased.

The context matters. McCambridge wasn’t just an actress on The Exorcist; she engineered one of its most indelible elements: the demon voice. That work sat in an uncanny valley between acting, sound design, and special effects, a hybrid labor the Oscars historically struggle to name, much less honor. Her gripe isn’t petty; it’s structural. Awards culture likes clean categories because they create clean stories, and clean stories create marketable myths. A performance you can’t easily show at a luncheon clip reel becomes harder to credit, easier to fold into the film’s “overall achievement,” easier to let the brand swallow the craftsperson.

The subtext is also gendered and generational. McCambridge was a tough, old-school pro whose skill lived in technique, not celebrity. She’s pointing out how the industry celebrates faces, speeches, and campaign-friendly authorship while sidelining the invisible work that actually haunts audiences. The line is funny because it’s true; it’s sharp because it’s personal; it’s memorable because it indicts a system without sounding like a manifesto.

Quote Details

TopicWitty One-Liners
SourceHelp us find the source
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
McCambridge, Mercedes. (2026, January 16). At awards time, The Exorcist was nominated in 11 categories, everybody but the janitor was up for an Oscar. There was no category for what I did. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/at-awards-time-the-exorcist-was-nominated-in-11-88726/

Chicago Style
McCambridge, Mercedes. "At awards time, The Exorcist was nominated in 11 categories, everybody but the janitor was up for an Oscar. There was no category for what I did." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/at-awards-time-the-exorcist-was-nominated-in-11-88726/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"At awards time, The Exorcist was nominated in 11 categories, everybody but the janitor was up for an Oscar. There was no category for what I did." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/at-awards-time-the-exorcist-was-nominated-in-11-88726/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

Mercedes McCambridge

Mercedes McCambridge (March 16, 1916 - March 2, 2004) was a Actress from USA.

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