Now and Then's Thora Birch 'Grew Up Fast' as a Child Star; Now 42, She's Excited for Her Next Move (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

Thora Birch in 1994 and 2024.Photo:Amanda Edwards/Getty; Ron Galella Collection/Getty

Amanda Edwards/Getty; Ron Galella Collection/Getty

WhenThora Birchmakes herMayfair Witchesdebut in the second episode of the AMC series’ second season on Jan. 12, it won’t be her first brush withAnne Rice’s pulpy supernatural world. Way back in the early ’90s when she was a child actor best known for her roles in family-friendly films likeAll I Want for ChristmasandHocus Pocus, Birch says she was initially considered to play child blood-sucker Claudia in director Neil Jordan’s 1994 film adaptation ofInterview with the Vampire.

“I took a number of meetings with the director,” Birch, 42, tells PEOPLE. But at 12 years old, Birch wasn’t ready to play an adult woman trapped in the body of a little girl, and the role ultimately went toKirsten Dunst.

“At the time, I was still quite innocent in a lot of ways,” Birch recalls. “I grew up fast being a child actor, but there were still parts of that character and things that were required of her that I still felt were too adult, or I just didn’t connect up with it. I had no frame of personal reference for those deeper, more complex emotions that that character had to embody. So, for me, it was just like, ‘This is a little icky.’ But I did love it. I’m a huge fan of the movie and the show as well.”

Thora Birch in ‘Mayfair Witches’.Skip Bolen/AMC

Skip Bolen/AMC

“I love the Anne Rice universe,” she says. “I really appreciate how she treats New Orleans as its own character, and the show really benefits from shooting down there. It’s beautiful eye candy, it’s fun characters and it’s themes that never really go out of fashion: the occult, alchemy, you know? It’s sexy stuff.”

Birch joins season 2, which loosely adapts Rice’s 1993 novelLasher, as Gifford Mayfair, a distant cousin of the show’s head witch in charge, Rowan (Alexandra Daddario). “She’s part of the Mayfair empire and she’s a very wealthy, prominent figure in the world,” Birch says of the show’s version of the character. “But if she had a quarter of the powers Rowan has, I think she would be over the moon.”

“She has this sense of an impending doom and she doesn’t know if it’s for her or her family or something bigger, but she knows something’s coming,” she continues. “But also, you would expect her to say that anyway, because she’s just dying to be a real part of it, the supernatural powers of it all. So, yeah, because of that, she’s been more socially reclusive. We get the sense she doesn’t really get along with her husband too well and she’s just been hiding out in her beach house and just becoming slightly more hermetic.”

Thora Birch with Kathy Najimy, Sarah Jessica Parker and Bette Midler in 1993’s ‘Hocus Pocus’.Snap/Shutterstock

“It was more like, ‘Would you like to play in this space and finally enter the Anne Rice world and revisit working with AMC and just have a good time working with Jack Huston, who I’ve known for a while,’ ” she says. “So, in many ways it felt like an easy fit.Hocus Pocusis certainly part of that, but it wasn’t the first thing that came to mind. It was more, ‘This is an intriguing character in a fun world.’ ”

Hocus Pocusis just one of a number of Birch’s films that have become touchstones for people of her generation. In a sense, when you look at the arc of her career, there are definite flashpoints that map neatly onto millennials’ coming-of-age, withAll I Want for ChristmasandHocus Pocusrepresenting childhood,Monkey TroubleandNow and Thenrepresenting adolescence andAmerican BeautyandGhost Worldrepresenting the angsty teen years.

Birch chalks this up, in part, to the monoculture that existed in the ’90s, before the Internet and streaming fragmented everyone’s viewing habits. “We were all watching the same stuff, so we all had a similar frame of reference,” she says. “As far as the arc of my personal career, I just think like with a lot of people who started out so young, there’s a mirroring in your professional and personal lives. So, all those points that you mentioned were things that I was, in real time, experiencing and I did grow up in front of the camera.”

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“It was a film that had a huge impact at the time, especially among young girls,” Birch says. “But then, I dunno, I didn’t hear about it too much. And now it seems like the fans are recalling it and dusting it off the shelf and sharing it with younger audiences. I feel like there’s a lot of love emerging.”

Kimberly Wright/New Line/Kobal/Shutterstock

As a performer, Birch says she’d like to delve more into comedic roles. But at the same time, she’s hesitant to define this era of her career.

“I try not to say, ‘Oh, I just want to do this type of movie, or that type of movie,’ because it’s fun to play in all the different spaces,” she explains. “I try not to make a big plan. For a lot of people that works, but for me, in my experience, I’ve found that it’s better not to try tomanifesttoo deeply, because you still have to be open to the new surprises that the universe will introduce to you.”

source: people.com