Lilia Buckingham (COM’25) at the Hocus Pocus 2 premiere at AMC Lincoln Square in New York City on September 27. Photo by Anthony Behar/Sipa USA via AP Images

Film & TV

BU Student Stars in Hocus Pocus 2

Lilia Buckingham works to outsmart the Sanderson sisters in sequel to 1993 cult classic

In summer 2021, actor Lilia Buckingham had a few screen credits to her name, but industry burnout led her to leave acting and enroll at BU to study writing and producing instead. But she decided to audition one last time, for Hocus Pocus 2, the sequel to the beloved Halloween comedy starring Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker. 

She was glad she did. 

Six auditions later, Buckingham (COM’25) learned she had won the part of Cassie Traske, one of three best friends (along with Gossip Girl‘s Whitney Peak and The Baker and the Beauty‘s Belissa Escobedo) who must save Salem, Mass., from the Sanderson sisters.

“They told me and the other girls [Peak and Escobedo] they needed to do one more audition. They got us on Zoom and they were like, ‘Psych!’” Buckingham says with a laugh. “I fell to my knees in my bathroom. It had been so long, waiting to hear and getting my hopes up. And I was going to be doing something that was going to totally change my life.”

Fans of the cult classic geeked out when Hocus Pocus 2 was released on Disney Plus on September 30, nearly 30 years after the original. That first Hocus Pocus earned only a modest box-office profit, but developed a cult following over the years, with the first rumblings about a sequel starting in 2014. 

In the new film, Midler, Parker, and Najimy reprise their roles as the (fabulous and campy) Sanderson sisters, witches killed in the 17th century and accidentally brought back to life whenever the Black Flame Candle is lit. The friends must prevent the sisters from procuring an immortality spell and becoming all-powerful.

The film, which also stars Tony Hale (Arrested Development, Veep), Hannah Waddingham (Ted Lasso), and Sam Richardson (Veep), was Disney Plus’ biggest US movie debut ever. The New York Times named the sequel a critic’s pick and said that it captures “the same hokey magic of the original while creatively updating its humor.” Think jokes about Rumbas and Amazon’s Alexa and a nod to the queer community, which has embraced the film. 

A normal student 

Buckingham describes growing up in Los Angeles in a “young actor scene, in an affluent kind of world,” and participating in musical theater and dance from a young age. Her first on-screen appearance was a minor role on Modern Family in 2012. In 2018, she became one of the stars of Brat TV, a network aimed at the Gen Z audience. She starred as the character Autumn Miller on several of the network’s shows, such as Crown Lake and Chicken Girls, gaining a huge social media following in the process (1.5 million followers on Instagram alone). In 2021, she coauthored the novel Influence with Sara Shepard, author of Pretty Little Liars, a book about teen social media influencers. 

“I was always a huge reader growing up,” Buckingham says. “I took short story and creative writing classes and ended up with the incredible opportunity to work with Sara Shepard after I came to her with this idea of a murder mystery thriller set in the influencer world. I always felt like I could give a very firsthand account of what that world is really like.”

That writing experience inspired Buckingham to forego acting and instead study film and television at the College of Communication, in hopes of one day developing and running a production company that adapts books into films. But she couldn’t ignore that last Hocus Pocus audition, seeing that she grew up watching it every year with her family as Halloween approached. After she booked Hocus Pocus 2 in August 2021, Buckingham attended BU for a month before taking a leave of absence to go to Rhode Island for five months to shoot the film.

The Boston Globe reports that while the original was largely filmed in Salem, Mass., the popularity of the area, especially in the lead-up to Halloween, “made the location too busy for filming a sequel.” 

Buckingham says filming with Midler, Parker, and Najimy, seeing all-time favorite artists perform up close, was a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It was an honor getting to learn from them, see how they operate on a set, and how they can command an audience. It was one of the most incredible learning experiences I’ll ever have.”

Another moment she will never forget is a conversation she had with Najimy while they were sitting around during a 14-hour filming day. Najimy asked her what she was working on next, and Buckingham replied that she was moving into her BU dorm as soon as filming wrapped.

“And she said, ‘I just want you to know that a lot of people in the industry will tell you that you really don’t need college, and doing it is wasting time. And I think it’s super admirable that you’re doing it and you’re taking time to focus on your education. It’s very cool because we don’t often see that in the industry,’” Buckingham recalls.

She returned to BU in time for the 2022 spring semester, and since then has been just a “normal student,” albeit one who had to take off for the film’s red carpet premiere in New York City.

“The premiere was the best day of my life,” Buckingham says. “It felt like I was living in Gossip Girl, getting my hair done and being given a dress, and going with my best friends. But it still feels like it wasn’t real because after we did a day of press, I came back to school and everything went back to normal.”

She says classmates are often baffled when they learn she’s in the film, asking why she is currently in school and not in Hollywood. “But everyone is very, very supportive,” she says. “The other day I saw a girl walking down Comm Ave wearing a Hocus Pocus sweatshirt, and I stopped her to say I liked her shirt. She goes, ‘Oh my God, you were in the movie!’ It was very cute.”

What’s next for Buckingham? There’s another project out there, she says, but she’s unable to provide any details. And despite the resurgence in her acting career, she still plans to pursue her film writing studies at BU. 

She’s very happy to be in school and to have some semblance of normalcy, at least for a little bit. “Until, you know, I’m forced to leave and then work on something,” she says. “So until then, I’m just going to try and live a life as normal as possible.”