'Hocus Pocus': Where are they now? (2024)

Bette Midler (Winifred)

Best line: "Oh look, another glorious morning. Makes me sick!"

Winifred is the ringleader of the Sanderson sisters. When the Salem townspeople caught and hanged them in the late-1600s, she was quick enough to cast a spell that would allow the sisters to come back eventually. She is insecure about her looks and stops at nothing to complete the potion that would make her young again. She leads her sisters around after they were resurrected, navigating the 20th century with relative ease and even giving a guest performance of "I Put a Spell on You" at a Halloween party.

While Bette Midler didn't get her youth potion in Hocus Pocus, her career certainly didn't end there. She went on to star alongside Goldie Hawn and Diane Keaton in 1996's The First Wives Club and Danny DeVito in 2000's Drowning Mona. She also played Bobbie in 2004's The Stepford Wives and has released multiple albums covering what she considers to be the greatest hits.

In the late-2010s, Midler won a Tony for her performance in the Broadway revival of Hello, Dolly! and appeared on Ryan Murphy's series The Politician, which earned the Divine Miss M an Emmy nomination for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series. She also returned for the Hocus Pocus sequel on Disney+ in 2022.

Sarah Jessica Parker (Sarah)

Best line: "My lucky rat tail! Just where I left it!"

The youngest Sanderson sister, Sarah is especially interested in the teenage boys the witches encounter. While ignorant most of the time, her special talent seems to lie in the area of seduction—whether it's sitting on the lap of a 20th-century bus driver or canoodling with Winifred's former beau, Billy Butcherson.

Carrie Bradshaw, er, Sarah Jessica Parker graduated from witch costumes to a coveted closet of high-fashion threads on Sex and the City, the HBO television series of the late-'90s and early-2000s that also spawned two feature films. In keeping with her fashionista character, Parker has her own line of clothing, shoes, and accessories, as well as fragrances.

Other popular appearances post-Hocus Pocus include 1996's The First Wives Club with Midler, 2006's Failure to Launch, and 2009's Did You Hear About the Morgans?, a brief stint on Glee in 2012, and starring opposite Thomas Haden Church on the HBO series Divorce, which ran from 2016 to 2019.

In 2020, Parker appeared in the about the mental health challenges for people alone during the COVID-19 crisis. She also revisited the world of Sex and the City with the HBO Max series And Just Like That and inhabited Sarah Sanderson again in Hocus Pocus 2.

Kathy Najimy (Mary)

Best line: "Since this promises to be a most dire and stressful evening, I suggest we form a calming circle."

Mary is the sweetest Sanderson witch—if sweet witches can really be a thing. Most of what she does is in service to her sister Winifred, to whom she is clearly devoted. At one point, she even offers to let her sibling hit her if that would improve her spirits. Her less redeeming quality is that she has the ability to smell children and uses it multiple times to locate Max, Dani, and Allison.

All three of the Sanderson sisters went on to have wildly successful acting careers. After Hocus Pocus, Kathy Najimy's credits are extensive. She (or her voice) appeared on the mid-1990s series Ellen and the late-'90s TV take on Hercules, and in 1998's Hope Floats, 2008's WALL-E, and 2013's Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas.

She's spent more than a decade voicing Peggy on King of the Hill, and made appearances on Veep, Inside Amy Schumer, Descendants, The Rocketeer, and Duncanville. She also reunited with her witchy sisters in Hocus Pocus 2.

Omri Katz (Max)

Best line: "Let's light this sucker and meet the old broads."

Max is a new kid in Salem, an outcast Cali dude who thinks Halloween is just for candy companies. After his parents force him to take his little sister trick-or-treating, he quickly sheds his distaste for the holiday when the two are joined by his crush, Allison. In an effort to impress Allison, Max suggests a visit to the old Sanderson house and stupidly lights the black flame candle—finally, the virgin the witches have been waiting for.

Omri Katz's most popular role remains that of the virgin who lit the black flame candle. He went on to appear in the 1996 TV movie Dallas: J.R. Returns and made a guest appearance as Brad in the 1999 Freaks and Geeks episode "Tests and Breasts." He also appeared briefly on General Hospital in 2000 as a tattoo artist.

Thora Birch (Dani)

Best line: "Max likes your yabos. In fact, he loves 'em."

While Max is unhappy with the move and skeptical of Salem's traditions, his little sister, Dani, is all in. She spends the entire movie dressed in a witch costume and begs her brother to take her trick-or-treating—which, of course, leads to the revival of the town's witch problem from three centuries ago. She's sassy, she knows a weird amount about her big brother being a virgin, and she rocks a mean red lip for an 8-year-old.

Thora Birch kept a somewhat steady lineup of projects after Hocus Pocus. Her childhood stardom continued in Clear and Present Danger in 1994, Alaska in 1996, and on Touched by an Angel in 1997. In 1999, she starred in American Beauty, perhaps her most notable role after Dani, followed by Ghost World in 2001.

She went on to appear in 2010's The Pregnancy Pact, a couple of episodes of Colony in 2016, and 2019's The Last Black Man in San Francisco, with a recurring role on The Walking Dead.

Vinessa Shaw (Allison)

Best line: "Form a circle of salt to protect from zombies, witches, and old boyfriends."

Allison manages to catch Max's eye as soon as he moves to Salem. As he tells Dani, she's the girl of his dreams—and she just so happens to be the daughter of the woman who formerly ran the Sanderson sisters museum. Allison's knowledge guides the film's story line. It's she who first introduces the black flame candle, and she's the one who figures out the witches can't handle salt.

Vinessa Shaw has maintained a steady résumé of acting credits, her most notable including Eyes Wide Shut in 1999, The Hills Have Eyes in 2006, and 3:10 to Yuma in 2007, the latter of which earned her a Screen Actors Guild award nomination.

Later roles include Kate in the second season of Ray Donovan, Penelope in 2015's Bereave, and the lead in the 2018 horror film Family Blood. Shaw also starred in actress Carlson Young's feature directorial debut, The Blazing World, alongside Dermot Mulroney.

Larry Bagby (Ernie "Ice")

Best line: "Tubular!"

Ernie, who prefers the moniker "Ice"—which he has shaved into the back of his head—is one half of Salem's local troublemaking duo. He steals Max's cross trainers and interrupts small children trick-or-treating to demand a candy toll. His antics eventually land the bullies in cages in the Sanderson house after he calls the witches "ugly chicks."

Ice took a break from bullying kids in graveyards and moved on to playing Larry Blaisdell on Buffy the Vampire Slayer in the late-1990s. He made appearances on popular shows like JAG, CSI, ER, Ray Donovan, and The Young and the Restless, but is best known for his roles in 2003's Saints and Soldiers and 2005's Walk the Line. He appeared as a bartender in the 2022 film Father Stu, starring Mark Wahlberg.

Tobias Jelinek (Jay)

Best line: "Wanna look in windows and watch babes undress?"

Jay is the peanut butter to Ernie's jelly. He rocks a leather jacket and long blonde hair, and engages in typical bully activities like hanging out in graveyards and peer pressuring kids into having butts (cigarettes).

The leather jacket role served Tobias Jelinek well. He appeared in in 1997 as a motorcycle gang member. After a few TV movies and a 2014 stint on The Young and the Restless, Jelinek appeared on The Mindy Project as Dirk and starred in the 2015 horror Fire City: End of Days. He appeared on Arrow for a brief character arc, the short-lived series American Woman, This Is Us, and the final season of Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. in 2020.

Stephanie Faracy (Jenny)

Best line: "How much candy have you had, honey?"

Jenny is Max and Dani's mom. Although she's rarely present in the movie, she notably dresses as Madonna for a Halloween party. When her children burst in to tell her they're being pursued by three evil witches, she simply laughs it off and chalks up their excitement to an excess of sugar.

Post-Hocus Pocus, Stephanie Faracy's most popular roles have been in 2004's Sideways and 2010's Temple Grandin. She also made brief appearances in 2011's Bad Teacher and episodes of Desperate Housewives, Happily Divorced, and Modern Family in the early-2010s.

Since then, Faracy has popped up in the 2016 comedy Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates, a season of Lifetime's Devious Maids, a recurring role on How to Get Away With Murder, the Amazon series Sneaky Pete in 2019, and Netflix's Uncoupled in 2022.

Charles Rocket (Dave)

Best line: "It's not Dad, it's Dadula."

Dave is the perfect embarrassing movie version of a dad. When Max introduces him to Allison, his first instinct is to kiss her hand—and, naturally, he is dressed up as Dracula when he does it. He's entirely clueless as to what's really going on with the kids throughout the entire movie—oblivious to their witch hunt as well as Max's unhappiness at his new school.

Charles Rocket went on to appear in 1994's Dumb and Dumber, 1997's Father's Day, and 2000's Titan A.E. He had television roles on shows like , Touched by an Angel, The King of Queens, and 3rd Rock From the Sun throughout the 1990s and early-2000s before he died at the age of 56 in 2005.

Doug Jones (Billy Butcherson)

Best line: "Wench! Trollop!"

Billy was, at one point, Winifred's lover, but when his fair lady found him "sporting" with her sister Sarah, she poisoned him and sewed his mouth shut with a dull needle. When the witches return, Winifred summons Billy from the grave and instructs him to pursue the children and her precious spell book. However, he isn't particularly cooperative. Perhaps because of the aforementioned poisoning incident, Billy proves to be an ally to the kids instead. When he cuts open the stitches so he can finally speak, he makes it pretty clear that he hadn't been pining for Winifred all those years.

Doug Jones has come a long way from the grave of Billy Butcherson. He is best known for his collaborations with Guillermo del Toro, with roles in 2006's Pan's Labyrinth, as well as Hellboy and Hellboy II: The Golden Army (in 2004 and 2008, respectively). He played Lady Sharpe in 2015's Crimson Peak, and Amphibian Man in del Toro's Oscar-winning The Shape of Water in 2017.

On television, Jones has appeared on What We Do in the Shadows and Star Trek: Discovery. He also reprised his role as Billy in the Hocus Pocus sequel.

Sean Murray (Thackery)

Best (silently mouthed) line: "I'm sorry, Emily. I had to wait 300 years for a virgin to light a candle."

In human form, Thackery's only role was that of a protective big brother. When his little sister Emily answered the witches' siren call three centuries ago, he dashed through the woods barefoot to their cabin in an attempt to save her. He failed, and the witches sentenced him to live forever in feline form. Sean Murray is Thackery in body only—a separate actor voiced all of his lines.

After playing Thackery, Murray moved on to roles where he used his own voice. He played Zane Hart in 1993's Harts of the West, and made appearances on Touched by an Angel, ER, and JAG in the late-'90s. He is best known for his role as Special Agent McGee on NCIS, whom he has played since 2003.

Jason Marsden (Thackery's Voice)

Best line: "So, for three years, I guarded the house on Halloween night, when I knew some airhead virgin might light that candle."

While Sean Murray played Thackery in human form, Jason Marsden did the voice work for both human Thackery and cat Thackery.

Marsden's voice kept him a busy man for the rest of the '90s. He lent his vocals to Sonic the Hedgehog and Marsupilami in 1993, various Batman series throughout the '90s and 2000s, and in 1995's The Goofy Movie as Max. His body finally got some screen time on Boy Meets World in the mid-'90s, on which he played Eric's friend.

After that, it was back to voice work with Jungle Cubs, The Lion King 2, and Hercules. Other notable titles include Kim Possible, The Fairly OddParents, and The Garfield Show.