“There’s a little witch in all of us.”
Twenty-six years later, fans still can’t get enough of Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman in Practical Magic. Based on Alice Hoffman‘s novel of the same name, the 1998 movie starred the Oscar winners as witchy sisters Sally and Gilly Owens. But, despite the A-list line-up—which also included Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest as their delightfully wacky and brownies-for-breakfast-promoting aunts—critics failed to fall under Practical Magic‘s spell.
Perhaps it was because it was a hard movie to pin down. Was it a romantic comedy centering on Sally’s blossoming romance with the honorable officer Gary Hallett (Aiden Quinn)?
But it could also be classified as horror because of Gilly’s toxic relationship with “cowboy Dracula” Jimmy (Goran Visnjic), who haunts her even after she and Sally accidentally kill him. And then it’s also a family drama about inherited generational trauma thanks to a curse that befalls any man who falls in love with an Owens witch.
Even director Griffin Dunne acknowledged he threw everything and more into the cauldron.
“I remember Bob Daly, who was co-CEO of Warner Brothers—at our premiere, he sat one row in front [of me],” Dunne told Vanity Fair. “After a very lighthearted scene with girls giggling and being hilarious, [we were] having them dig up a body from a rose bush and stick needles in its eyes. He turned to the person next to him and went, ‘I wish the kid would just pick a tone.'”
The real charm, however, was that Practical Magic was all of those things, which is why audiences are still bewitched by the movie, especially during spooky season, and its weird mix of humor, horror and, especially, the heart in the bond between Sally and Gilly.
More than two decades later, the film has cast such a spell on audiences that in June, Warner Bros. announced that Practical Magic 2 was officially in development.
To celebrate the movie’s 26th anniversary, we’re revealing behind the scenes facts about its production, which was cursed by an actual witch, that infamous midnight margaritas scene and the star who asked to buy the Owens’ swoonworthy home.
So, cue up Faith Hill‘s “This Kiss” and try not to dance naked under the full moon until after we reveal these mystifying secrets about Practical Magic:
1. Sandra Bullock was already a major force in Hollywood when she signed on to play Sally Owens in Practical Magic, based on the 1995 novel of the same name by Alice Hoffman. And the While You Were Sleeping actor revealed in the DVD commentary that she suggested Nicole Kidman to star opposite her as the wild sister, Gilly, despite the two women having never met before.
“I was like, ‘Nicole Kidman seems like the perfect person,'” Bullock said. “Our energies are so opposite that we needed what the other person had. I know I needed what she had. I don’t know why I thought of her or why that worked, it’s just one of those things, those magical things.”
2. Kidman was equally as excited about working with Bullock.
“I’ve mainly only got to work with men in my career,” she explained, “so the idea of working with Sandy on something like this, I thought, ‘Wow, that sounds fun and I want to work with a girl!'”
3. Although they had no prior connection, the movie’s director Griffin Dunne revealed that Bullock and Kidman acted exactly like sisters on set.
“They just had this great chemistry,” Dunne said. “They fight, they laugh at the same jokes, they’re familiar with each other in that historical way.”
4. Aiming for authenticity, Dunne hired a practicing witch to serve as a consultant. But after she became unhappy with her contract, demanding $250,000 and a percentage of Practical Magic‘s theatrical gross, the filmmaker said she sued Warner Bros. She also left Dunne a “chilling” voicemail threatening to curse him and the movie while speaking in tongues.
“I took the little mini cassette [recording] and gave it to the legal department,” he told Vanity Fair. “They didn’t get halfway through it before they said, ‘F–k this,’ and wrote her a check.”
5. As a precaution, Dunne staged an exorcism to protect production from any lingering hexes.
“It was a very simple, New Age-y ceremony that was about as silly as the idea that someone would curse you over the phone,” he told Vulture. “It was mostly chants and smoke and s–t like that. I just did it to cover my bases.”
6. The experience with the witch did result in one good thing: It inspired the line, “Curses only have power when you believe them.”
7. Stockard Channing and Dianne Wiest make memorable turns as Sally and Gilly’s aunts Frances and Jet, with Channing recalling most of their conversations centered on the looks of their elder witches.
“I remember a makeup and hair test that didn’t work out because I wasn’t wearing much makeup,” Channing told Vulture. “We came up with the idea together: ballet makeup.” This meant black lipstick and long, curly wigs, because “the more eccentric it was,” Channing explained, “the more it worked.”
8. When it came to France and Jet’s “timeless” wardrobe, Channing said the costume designers took inspiration from Steve Nicks.
“We just went way out on a limb with the crazy fabrics and clothing,” she recalled. “That very female, feminine thing, lots of beads and jewelry.”
9. Channing lied about speaking French in order to secure a free trip to Paris to dub the movie for its release in France.
In hindsight, it was “one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done in my entire life,” Channing admitted to Vulture. “I’m sure the minute I left, they hired someone else to do it right. But I made a real horse’s ass of myself.”
10. Bullock revealed during her commentary on the DVD that Kidman brought her own tequila to the iconic midnight margaritas scene, leading the four actors to actually drink. And they weren’t the only ones to imbibe.
11. During the last take, Dunne made the fateful decision to add the Harry Nilsson song “Lime in a Coconut” to the sequence, resulting in an impromptu crew party.
“So we did the dancing,” he told Vanity Fair. “Yes, I definitely joined in on the tequila. I was quite s–tfaced by the time we finished shooting, as was everyone. It just took off. I think there are outtakes of me joining in the dancing and all of us prancing around. Yeah, it’s true: everybody got s–tfaced for that.”
12. While composer Michael Nyman originally scored the film, Alan Silvestri was brought in to re-do the music just before its the theatrical release. This abrupt change resulted in the movie briefly having two soundtracks available for purchase.
13. Filmed partly on location in San Juan Island in Washington, the Owens’ infamous Victorian home actually wasn’t real: It was an architectural shell built for the filming of the exterior scenes and was torn down the day after production ended.
14. After seeing the movie, Barbra Streisand called the producers to ask if she could buy the Owens’ house.
15. Production designer Robin Standerfer created all the interiors for the home, which resulted in a new career as an in-demand interior decorator. Ben Stiller and Christine Taylor asked Standerfer to remodel their home after watching Practical Magic.
16. The final scene in the movie was filmed in the town of Coupeville on Whidbey Island in Washington, with locals being invited to play townspeople watching the Owens women’s annual Halloween performance.
17. Picturing a Gary Cooper type for officer Gary Hallett, the filmmaker “wanted someone who had that vibration of being good and honest and decent,” producer Denise Di Novi said, which are the qualities Aiden Quinn exuded. So much so, in fact, that even Bullock’s mom noted it.
“My mom said something about Aiden, which is absolutely spot on,” Bullock recalled. “‘You look at Aidan and the man comes with an incredible amount of integrity.’ He does and you see that in his eyes.”
18. But one of Dunne’s biggest concerns was making sure viewers would root for Sally and Hallett to get together.
“It’s very difficult to pull off being the guy who shows up halfway through the movie who is going to be the love interest,” Dunne explained. “It was always something that worried us. But he’s the breath of fresh air that walks through the door.”
19. In one of her first major roles, Evan Rachel Wood plays Sally’s daughter Kylie, while Camilla Belle appears as a younger version of Bullock.
20. Jimmy Angelov was “originally written for a guy from Texas,” Dunne revealed, but once ER star Goran Višnjić was cast, the character became Croatian.
21. The original version of the film was much more “terrifying,” with more of a focus on “the horror of domestic violence,” Dunne told Vanity Fair, but the studio felt it was “too intense.”
Additionally, screenwriter Akiva Goldsman told Collider that the first cut was split more evenly between Bullock and Kidman’s characters, specifically the haunting of Gillian which lent more “darkness” to the film.
“It was more of a ghost story,” Goldsman said, “It was really beautiful and it was weird.”
22. Dunne’s original ending featured a longer, “beautiful” sequence of the four Owens witches jumping off the roof, which the studio didn’t understand.
“They said, ‘Why would they jump off the roof?'” Dunne told Vanity Fair. “So we had to cut it down. But I had a real, choreographed to music, floating around—I thought—quite a lovely ending that I think would play better now.”
23. Though it was announced in June 2024 that Practical Magic 2 is officially in development, this isn’t the first attempt at a follow-up. A failed 2004 TV pilot that starred Kim Delaney as Sally and Jeri Ryan as Gilly was executive-produced by Bullock.
24. ABC Family also tried to conjure a remake in 2010, while HBO ordered a pilot of Rules of Magic, a 1960s-set story centering on aunts Franny and Jet, in 2019, but it has yet to be made.
25. Dunne was never approached about any of the potential projects, but told Vanity Fair he would be interesting in returning to the material if asked.
“I would like to bring the perspective of a filmmaker 25 years later in the world that we live in now, to see how we could retell the story in a more contemporary way,” he said. “I’d be really curious to know how to be in that world again.”
Practical Magic is streaming on Hulu.