Kathy Najimy Says Getting Into Character For ‘Hocus Pocus’ With ‘Idol’ Bette Midler Was ‘Easy’
The ‘Sister Act’ star revealed that returning to the role of Mary Sanderson was incredibly easy for the beloved Halloween movie sequel.
Working with your heroes sounds like a dream job, and it seems like Kathy Najimy would agree. The actress revealed that getting back into character for the long-awaited Hocus Pocus 2 after nearly 30 years since the original was a breeze, but she said that it was just easy the first time because she was a diehard fan of her co-star Bette Midler. Kathy, 65, opened up about it after The View co-host Alyssa Farah-Griffin asked her about reuniting with Bette and Sarah Jessica Parker for the sequel during an episode on Friday, October 7.
Kathy pointed to The View moderator Whoopi Goldberg and said that it was probably similar to her reprising her role in Sister Act. She also said that her character, Mary, was very easy to get a grasp on. “When you do a role, and then you do it again, and then maybe we’re going to do it again. It isn’t rocket science. I had one motivation in Hocus Pocus and that was to eat as many children as I could and make Winnie, Bette Midler’s character, like me the best,” she said. “I want to have a really great actor monologue about how I got into character.”
Not only was she able to simply grasp Mary’s motivations, but she also explained that she had wished to work with Bette for her whole career. “It was very easy for me, because growing up Bette Midler was everything to me. She was the idol of my life,” she said. “Then to hear 20 years later from Jeffrey Katzenberg: ‘We’re going to do this movie called Hocus Pocus, and we have an offer for you to play Bette Midler’s sister,’ and I thought, ‘Well…'”
Besides speaking about the role, Whoopi also mentioned to Kathy that Sister Act 3 was in the works, and she said that she felt like the reboot of Hocus Pocus was at least part of why studio executives thought to give the classic musical a sequel, nearly 30 years after the second one. “You all helped it happen, I think, because they brought Hocus Pocus back, and they finally said, ‘We might as well put those nuns back out there, and see if they have any juice,'” Whoopi said.
Hocus Pocus has long been a beloved 90s flick, especially around Halloween. The sequel reunited not only the famed trio of witches but also Doug Jones as Billy Butcherson. The movie is now streaming on Disney+.