Lighting the candle — or the pipe? Omri Katz opened up about his experience filming Hocus Pocus at sixteen, and how toking up on the job almost cost him the role.
“That was at an age where I started experimenting with cannabis,” Katz, now 46, told Entertainment Weekly in an interview published on Wednesday, October 26. “Let’s just say, some of those scenes, I was having a good old time.”
The Dallas alum revealed that initially, he was “misperforming” and “not hitting my keys or marks,” but quickly realized he needed to straighten up after director Kenny Ortega approached him about his mistakes.
“Kenny comes up to me and practically grabs me by the shirt, and he was like, ‘Are you high?’ and I was like, ‘No,’ and of course, I was,” Katz explained. “We got it done, but that was kind of a wake-up call, like, ‘Omri, you’ve got to be a little more professional and make sure you hit your cues!’”
While the California native couldn’t specifically remember what scenes he had the munchies for, costar Vinessa Shaw, who played Max’s love interest, Allison — pointed out a sequence at the beginning of the film where Winifred Sanderson (Bette Midler) zaps his character with a bolt of green magic.
“Yeah, but I didn’t look like I was getting zapped,” Katz joked. “I looked like I was getting high.”
A spooky Halloween staple, Hocus Pocus focuses on Max — a newcomer to Salem — who must find a way to save his town after he accidentally lights the black flame candle and unknowingly frees a trio of evil witches played by Midler, 76, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy.
The family-friendly flick was initially a box office flop in 1993, however, the film eventually became a cult classic, with fans demanding it expand its franchise over the past three decades.
While the three witches reprised their roles in Hocus Pocus 2 last month, Katz, Shaw, 46, Birch, 40, and cat Thackery Binx, voiced by Jason Marsden, all revealed that they weren’t in the Disney+ sequel, despite being willing to jump back into character.
Katz, for his part, told EW earlier this month that he “would have loved to be involved,” and he feels “bad for the original fan base saying we aren’t because I’m sure they wanted to see us reprise our roles.” However, the Zorro alum shared that he thought the “new direction” was a solid decision for the franchise, saying, “I think it’ll be good for everyone who loved the original! I hope fans will go see it. I know I will.”
Birch, meanwhile, revealed to Entertainment Tonight in September that she was “dismayed” she didn’t have a role in the sequel, but the Now and Then star confirmed that she would have been “on set with the girls” if she hadn’t been “working on something else when they were filming.”
