Whatever Happened to Thora Birch?
What To Know
- Thora Birch, known for her childhood roles in Hocus Pocus and American Beauty, took a break from Hollywood in the 2000s but has since returned with notable acting roles and appearances at major film festivals.
- She has expanded her career to include directing, making her directorial debut with The Gabby Petito Story in 2022 and becoming the first woman to direct a film adaptation of an Elmore Leonard novel.
- Birch has spoken openly about stepping back from acting to focus on her personal life and education, and she married Michael Benton Adler in 2018.
Thora Birch has become a fan favorite as Dani Dennison, the spunky little sister who bravely faced off against the Sanderson Sisters in Hocus Pocus. Just 11 years old at the time, Birch already had a few major credits under her belt, including Patriot Games and Purple People Eater. But after a strong run in the ’90s and early 2000s with acclaimed films like American Beauty and Ghost World, she quietly stepped away from Hollywood. Over the past decade, however, Birch has come back and has been busy acting and directing. Now, with a third Hocus Pocus in the works (she did not appear in the sequel), Birch said, according to Variety, “Yeah, I’d like to know what they land on for how Dani wound up. I’m super open to the idea.”
After taking a break from the spotlight in the 2000s, Birch began reemerging in the mid-2010s with a few carefully chosen roles. In 2015, she joined the sci-fi drama Colony as Morgan, followed by a role in the 2019 indie favorite The Last Black Man in San Francisco. That same year, she joined AMC’s The Walking Dead. Birch has remained active since then, appearing at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival for the premiere of The Chronology of Water, directed by Kristen Stewart; she plays Claudia in the film. She is also set to appear in season 2 of Mayfair Witches as Gifford Mayfair, a new addition to the series.
Lifetime Television/Everett Collection
Birch has also found success on the other side of the camera. In 2022, she made her directorial debut with The Gabby Petito Story for Lifetime, a dramatization of the true-crime case that garnered significant attention. She also appeared in the film, and that same year, she ventured into podcasting with Overleaper, a science-fiction thriller in which she played dual roles in an alternate-universe military storyline.
That same year, she filmed a role for the first season of Netflix’s Wednesday, but left the shoot before completion. Netflix said she had to return to the U.S. for a family matter; Birch later told Entertainment Tonight in 2022 that “I had filmed a certain amount and there were some questions about how much more to go with that character and there were just some changes and adjustments made … it didn’t work out that I would be able to go back, so they are finding their own solutions.”
In 2023, Birch made headlines when it was announced that she would direct Mr. Paradise, an adaptation of Elmore Leonard‘s crime novel, making her the first woman to direct a film based on Leonard’s work.
Birch has spoken candidly about why she took time away from acting earlier in her career, saying that she wanted to focus on her education and personal life. In 2018, she married talent manager and philanthropist Michael Benton Adler, and the couple has kept their relationship largely private.
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October 2023
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