Practical Magicturns 25 years old, and to celebrate it directorGriffin Duneshared some anecdotes related to the now cult film, including the moment a real witch cursed him. Dunne, who began his acting career in 1975 with the movieThe Other Side of the Mountain, soon began working behind the camera as well, making his directorial debut in 1996 withDuke of Groove. His third film as a director would arrive just two years after that, and would become a cult classic despite not having performed well at the box office at the time.
Released in 1998,Practical Magichad an amazing cast, including the already very popular Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman. However, the film received bad reviews, and did not have a good run in theaters. But, as the years went by,it became a very popular story. And maybe there’s some real magic involved in that.
During an interview withSiriusXM’s The Jess Cagle Show, Dunne recalled consulting a real witch for the movie, who contributed a lot to its development, but there was also a dark side to the whole thing:
“So I had the producer call her and offer this, you know, thinking she’d be pleased and she said, ‘You think you can buy me off with a hotel and a first class ticket? I want gross points. I want a Practical Magic cookbook. I want…’ some outrageous amount of money in addition, and so she came back, the producer, I just started a rehearsal, she was really quite shaken.
She went, ‘Oh, that didn’t go well at all,’ and so I went back to my office, it was on the lot, and I have a voicemail and it says, ‘You think you’ve had misfortune in your life in the past? Well, that’s nothing with what’s coming,’ and spoken in this tongue and it was chilling, quite honestly, and I hung up the phone. Immediately, Warner Brothers was sued. I gave them the micro cassette, or the audio thing of the message and they were so freaked out, they couldn’t get through it either and they paid her off.”
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One of the Witch’s Phrases Ended Up Being Part of the Movie
The story ofPractical Magichas a curse at the center of its plot. In the film, the Owens sisters must live knowing that any man they fall in love with will suffer an untimely death due to a curse that has befallen their family years ago. But Sally, Bullock’s character, will do everything possible to change her destiny and livea love story with a happy ending.
Despite the conflicts and the real-life curse, the witch’s contribution ended being pretty useful, even giving the director one of the film’s most memorable lines:
“We talked about the ceremony with the brooms and stuff. She suggested that which is a very visual thing. She also contributed a line, I’m gonna be very clear, one line to the script, which is ‘A curse is only as strong as how much you believe in it. I’ve already mangled the line, but you get the idea.”
