Just Jared Jr
The ‘Hocus Pocus‘ Secrets You Didn’t Know About
FRI, 20 OCTOBER 2017
Hocus Pocus is one of those movies you HAVE to watch around Halloween time, and if you don’t, then what are you actually watching?
The flick, starring Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker, has become a cult classic — and before you watch it tonight on Freeform (don’t lie, we know you are), we’ve got a few secrets to spill about the flick.
Director Kenny Ortega spoke with EW about how Leonardo DiCaprio once auditioned for Max, and how the dust flying out of Billy Butcherson’s mouth was actually dust.
He also shared that at first, Disney didn’t like how Bette, Sarah and Kathy looked as the Sanderson sisters.
“The ladies came in with idea for their characters,” Kenny says. “They came in with ideas for makeup and hair. Bette [Midler] threw on those buck teeth and had that crazy wild hairstyle and disappeared as we knew her. When Disney looked at the makeup test and the hair test, they came back and said, ‘You need to pull back on this, there’s no Bette Midler there.’”
He adds, “Then Kathy [Najimy] came in with the sort of that bit of paralysis and Disney at first was really concerned that we had gone too far and that we were losing the women in the characterizations and makeup. But they stood strong. We managed to gain the support of the company and went forward.”
We wonder what the Sanderson sisters were going to look like if Disney had their way!
Another secret from the set? Bette, Sarah and Kathy got stuck on their brooms!
“One of the first times that we went up to shoot with the girls on the vacuum cleaner and the brooms — their first take-off — we had some computer glitches and they were all stuck up in the air in these strange positions,” Kenny remembers.
“The girls were cackling [at first]. Then they were like, ‘Okay it’s not funny anymore, get us down from here.’”
