Joey King wasn't about to take any supernatural chances on the set of Practical Magic 2. The actress, who stars alongside Maisie Williams in the long-awaited sequel to the 1998 cult classic, admitted she performed a spiritual cleansing ritual after filming one particular scene that left her feeling unnerved .
Speaking at Teen Vogue Fest in Brooklyn on July 25, King revealed that she immediately reached for sage back at her hotel following a key sequence . "I was a little worried about one thing, I can't say what it is because it's a bit of a spoiler," King explained . "I was sitting in the middle of this shape for a while and I was like, 'Ooh.' I went back to my hotel after that big sequence [and] I smudged and saged myself" . Fortunately for the 26-year-old actress, her precautionary measures appeared to work—"nothing happened," she added .
Williams, 29, who rose to fame on Game of Thrones, told PEOPLE she didn't experience any paranormal activity on set, though she had fully embraced the mystical atmosphere. "I didn't have any experiences like that," Williams said. "But I was doing a lot of tarot cards at the time, and I was doing a lot of smudging" .
The superstition surrounding the Practical Magic franchise isn't entirely without precedent. In a 2023 Vanity Fair interview, original film director Griffin Dunne claimed that a witch consultant hired for the 1998 movie left a curse on his voicemail after a contract dispute . According to Dunne, the consultant demanded profit points and a cookbook deal, and when negotiations soured, she allegedly left "a curse in some sort of tongue" on his answering machine, prompting Warner Bros.' legal department to settle the matter swiftly .
Why this matters
The Practical Magic franchise has maintained a devoted following for over two decades, with themes of sisterhood, family curses, and self-discovery resonating across generations. The sequel, directed by Susanne Bier (Bird Box) and based on Alice Hoffman's 2021 novel The Book of Magic, brings back Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman as the Owens sisters while introducing a new generation played by King, Williams, Xolo Maridueña, and Lee Pace . The film's release on September 11 is expected to draw both nostalgic millennial audiences and younger viewers discovering the story for the first time .
Despite the spooky off-screen tales, King and Williams said their experience was overwhelmingly positive, thanks in large part to Bullock's warmth. "Sandra just texted us both straight away saying, 'Welcome, anything you need,'" Williams shared, calling Bullock "the nicest woman in Hollywood" . King added that Bullock and Kidman took them under their wing "as their daughters" . With a group chat still active among the four actresses, it seems the only real magic on set was the bond they formed—though King wasn't about to forgo the sage, just to be safe.
