'Hocus Pocus' 2's Doug Jones Jokes About Being a 'Slobbering' Bette Midler 'Fanboy' on Original Film's Set

Mar. 15, 2025

Doug Jones; Bette Midler.Photo: Alberto E. Rodriguez/Getty; Mark Sagliocco/WireImage

Billy Butcherson is back from the grave, again — and he’s setting the record straight.

In a new interview with PEOPLE ahead of the release ofHocus Pocus 2, set 29 years after the original film,Doug Jonestalks reprising his role as the morally sound zombie ex of Winifred Sanderson (Bette Midler), who once had an affair with her sister Sarah (Sarah Jessica Parker).

But in the new movie, “We find out what really happened back when,” Jones, now 62, tells PEOPLE of the relationship between Winnie and Billy in the 17th century. “It was just touched on in the first movie and this time we actually talk about it more and Billy gets to rant a bit when Billy gets a bee in his wig. It was fun to play.”

Jones teases a “delicious” and “hilarious” continuation of “the bitterness between Billy and Winifred” inHocus Pocus 2.

“The little side affair with Sarah is mentioned, but it doesn’t feel like a love lost either,” he adds.

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Doug Jones (L) and Omri Katz inHocus Pocus(1993).Doug Jones inHocus Pocus 2(2022).Doug Jones (L) and Omri Katz inHocus Pocus(1993).PHOTO: Disney/Kobal/ShutterstockDoug Jones inHocus Pocus 2(2022).PHOTO: Walt Disney Studios

Doug Jones (L) and Omri Katz inHocus Pocus(1993).Doug Jones inHocus Pocus 2(2022).

Doug Jones (L) and Omri Katz inHocus Pocus(1993).

Doug Jones inHocus Pocus 2(2022).

Doug Jones (L) and Omri Katz inHocus Pocus(1993).PHOTO: Disney/Kobal/ShutterstockDoug Jones inHocus Pocus 2(2022).PHOTO: Walt Disney Studios

“We’re sitting there looking exactly like we did 29 years ago, [Bette’s] makeup, wig. In fact, I think all the ladies looked younger and more vibrant than they did in the first movie. I don’t know how they all pulled it off, but I had a layer of rubber to hide behind,” he says, joking in addition, “I had an excuse to look the same.”

“I had been a fan of hers,” he says of the time before filming the first movie. “She was in the middle of that run of all those successful Disney Touchstone movies:Down and Out in Beverly Hills,Ruthless People,Outrageous FortuneandBig Business. It was just one after another.”

“After all that and thenalso her recording career, I had all of her albums and listened to them often. To see her face-to-face, I was just a slobbering fanboy,” Jones says.

Doug Jones.FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP via Getty

RELATED GALLERY:See theHocus PocusCast Then and Now

While Jones hadn’t spoken to Midler since the first film, she contacted him and invited him to reprise his role as Billy even before the upcoming sequel, as part of her 2020Hocus Pocus-themed charity eventIn Search of the Sanderson Sisters: A Hocus Pocus Hulaween Takeover.

“I ended up enlisting the help of my original makeup artist, Tony Gardner, to get me back into my Billy Butcherson look so I looked exactly the same again for that little special,” he recalls. “We filmed at his creature shop and he set up a green-screen backdrop. His daughter is a great director and brought a camera crew with her, so we shot mine a bit more professionally than I could have ever done on my own. Bette was incredibly happy with that and so grateful.”

And “the first thing” Midler told himon theHocus Pocus 2setwas just how much: “She grabbed my hand, she hugged me and said, ‘Thank you so much for participating in that again. You were so sweet, and so loving, and so funny.’ "

Jones remembers feeling like “the odd kid” in the first movie, which also starredThora Birch,Omri KatzandVinessa Shaw, while this time, he “had more social rapport” on set.

“Not that it was ever bad — it wasn’t. I was just this newer actor 29 years ago, who was just so excited to be working among these giant geniuses,” he tells PEOPLE.

Otherwise, the experience was “seamless.” As Jones explains “It wasas though no time had passedat all, and yet everyone was commenting on where we had all been in the meantime because 29 years, all of our careers had gone many places since then.”

Aside from Jones, Midler, Parker and Najimy, 65, the new cast includesTony Hale,Sam Richardson(whom Jones teams up with for much of the film),Hannah Waddingham,Whitney PeakandBelissa Escobedo.

Recalling how the Sanderson sisters walking back on set as being likethe Beatlesreturning, Jones says, “The crew seeing Billy walking through the door the first time, back with the wig and that long coat and looking exactly the same, you would’ve thought thatElvishad returned.”

“All of the young folk on our crew grew up with the first movie. Here walks in Billy from that movie, and they were all just gobsmacked: ‘Can I get a selfie with you? I know I’m not supposed to,’ " he says. “That added a different element to my experience — a really sweet one.”

Hocus Pocus 2is streaming Friday on Disney+.

source: people.com