Maisie Williams apparently tried some practical magic of her own long before joining the Owens family.
The Game of Thrones alum revealed that she once paid a person advertising herself as a witch on Etsy to help her manifest a movie role. Williams received specific words to repeat every night and said she followed the instructions, but there was no Hollywood ending to the experiment.
“I paid an Etsy witch to give me a role. To help me manifest a role in a movie,” Williams said during a British Vogue interview at the Aug. 26 European premiere of Practical Magic 2 in London. Asked what happened after she performed the ritual, Williams laughed, “It didn’t happen.”
The confession came while Williams was promoting an unusually fitting project. She plays Antonia Owens, one of Sally Owens’ grown daughters, opposite Sandra Bullock, Nicole Kidman and Joey King in the sequel to the 1998 film.
The Etsy Witch Gave Williams Something to Repeat Every Night
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Williams kept the story short but unusually specific. “I paid an Etsy witch to give me a role. To help me manifest a role in a movie,” she told British Vogue.
The seller then provided something Williams was supposed to say every night as part of the attempt to manifest the part. Williams said she did exactly that: “I said them every night.” Whatever the instructions were, they did not deliver the desired result.
She Still Has One Superstition She Follows
The failed attempt at career witchcraft has not made Williams indifferent to superstition. During the same conversation, she said she still dislikes walking across three consecutive drain covers, referring to a British superstition that associates doing so with bad luck.
“I don’t swear by it. I’ve done it,” she said, while admitting the sight of three drains in a row still makes her uncomfortable enough to avoid them.
Williams joked that the habit can create its own problems, including occasionally sending her in the direction of traffic just to avoid stepping across all three covers. She nevertheless continues to follow it because of the reassurance the ritual gives her. “It makes me feel like everything is gonna be fine,” she said. “It makes me feel like I have control over the uncontrollable, which I don’t.”
Her ‘Practical Magic 2’ Character Initially Rejects Magic
Williams’ current role gives the anecdote another twist. Antonia Owens is not introduced as somebody eager to embrace witchcraft. Williams told Teen Vogue that Antonia is training to become a neurosurgeon and has built her life around science, which initially functions as a rejection of the spirituality, magic and powers tied to her family.
“A lot of her journey is reconnecting with that,” Williams said. Antonia eventually comes to understand that science and magic do not necessarily have to cancel each other out.
Joey King plays her sister Kylie, a more rebellious and free-spirited counterpart. Williams said she and King became close during the four-month production, while working with Bullock and Kidman created what she described as a genuine sisterhood after years of admiring both actresses from afar.
The Owens Family Returns Nearly Three Decades Later
Practical Magic 2 brings Bullock and Kidman back as sisters Sally and Gillian Owens, with Dianne Wiest and Stockard Channing also returning from the original film. King and Williams play Sally’s now-grown daughters, while Lee Pace, Xolo Maridueña and Solly McLeod are among the additions to the cast.
Williams told Teen Vogue that the sequel does not simply reproduce the 1998 movie. She said it revisits what longtime fans loved about the original while moving the Owens family into a different stage of their lives and examining what has changed, healed or remained unresolved since the first story ended.
Susanne Bier directed the sequel from a screenplay credited to Akiva Goldsman, Georgia Pritchett and Kelly Marcel, based on Alice Hoffman’s novel The Book of Magic. The official film site says Warner Bros. will release the movie in North American theaters on Sept. 10, with the international rollout beginning Sept. 9.