Leonardo DiCaprio Thought ‘Hocus Pocus’ Was ‘Awful’ but Would’ve Done the Film on One Condition
As some may know, Leonardo DiCaprio was offered a lot of money to star in the Disney film Hocus Pocus. The Oscar-winner would later trust his instincts by rejecting the movie in favor of another project. But one of the reasons why he was originally against doing Hocus Pocus was because of his opinion of the film’s quality.
Leonardo DiCaprio helped inspire the ‘Hocus Pocus’ director to find the right actor for Max
When DiCaprio first auditioned for the main character Max in Hocus Pocus, most involved claimed they knew he wasn’t going to end up in the role. But Hocus Pocus director Kenny Ortega was told that the audition would point him to the right actor for Max.
“The [casting] ladies called me up and they said, ‘We’re sending you an actor today but he’s not available but you’re going to fall in love with him but you can’t have him,’” Ortega once told Entertainment Weekly (via Cosmopolitan). “I’m like, ‘Why are you teasing me?’ They were like, ‘You need to see this guy because he’ll inspire you and if nothing else, he’ll help you find the right guy to play Max.’”
DiCaprio would meet Ortega for the film and leave the filmmaker with a favorable impression of him. Although DiCaprio didn’t end up in the movie as predicted, Ortega did find himself inspired by the Oscar-winner after all.
“Obviously, he left and incredible things happened for that young man and to this day, but meeting him awakened me to the kind of spirit and fun and sincerity that I was looking for in an actor and when Omri Katz came around, I fell in love again and he was our Max,” he said.
Leonardo DiCaprio considered starring in ‘Hocus Pocus’ even though ‘I knew it was awful’
DiCaprio was still trying to figure out what kind of actor he wanted to be when he first started out. In a March 1995 printed interview with Movieline, DiCaprio wasn’t sure what kind of films he aspired to do. This uncertainty eventually led him to Hocus Pocus, which he didn’t have a high opinion of at the time.
“I just felt like doing a movie is doing a movie, I get money and fame, and that’s great, and I can act and have fun. And I was up for a movie called Hocus Pocus with Bette Midler, and I knew it was awful, but it was just like, ‘Okay, they’re offering me more and more money. Isn’t that what you do? You do movies and you get more and more money,’” he said.
Despite everyone advising him to do the film, DiCaprio’s gut feeling told him to stay away from the project. Eventually, he decided he’d act in Hocus Pocus under one condition.
“And everyone around me was saying, ‘Leonardo, how could you not take a movie?’ And I said to myself, ‘Okay, I’ll audition for this movie Gilbert Grape. If I don’t get that, I’ll do Hocus Pocus. I found myself trying so hard, investing so much time and energy in Gilbert Grape, I worked so damn hard at it and I finally got it, and it was like such a weight off my shoulders,” he said.
Vanessa Shaw once revealed that ‘Hocus Pocus’ was a flop when it originally came out
Hocus Pocus has recruited many fans over the years and continues to add more members to its cult following. However, Hocus Pocus star Vanessa Shaw had no idea the film would be as revered as it turned out to be. In a 2018 interview with Page Six, Shaw shared that critics were against this film from the beginning.
“It was actually a flop when it came out,” Shaw said. “[Bette Mildler] had gotten an Oscar for her work and had all these prestigious things that she’d been doing and then she decides to do this movie which in the critics’ eyes, it was just appalling. They were just thinking, ‘How could she do this?'”
