Okay, so sisters, love.

Sister, love, yes.

Do you want me to explain that? Please.

Okay, well, the sisterhood and the love between these generations of sisters is what our film is about.

Sisters of witches.

you'd like to work with.

Oh, God.

Tom Hanks.

I'm always thinking

about what genetic and lineage course correction I can do so that my kids... don't carry the burden of my baggage or my mother's or my grandmother's baggage, but that's also what the story is about.

Sally went a bit too far.

How was it for you shooting this so soon after you lost your partner?

You know, it's...

It's funny, like, I felt like I was...

My process was like, you know, you just want to do the right thing for the kids, so it's almost robotic.

Not until we went to England did I feel truly, like... free, not free of a grief, but it was such a happy time.

[laughs]

But to have a s- to have a theme, when you get to a certain place in life, when you've experienced enough of life and a lot of the roads are gonna be really hard, you know, to, especially if you're hiding a secret that everyone looks at as a curse, and being around somebody, they say you're, you're gonna bring horrible things to my life, you know, so you, you shut down.

And to find a match between two human beings who've experienced the same thing and have hidden things and made sure that they didn't open themselves up to, to feeling for people anymore because it just brings too much hurt, "I'm fine with this, my life is good," and to have that, that connection I think is, yes, it's about magic.

He's-

Wow.

You know? And it felt, it felt a little bit urgent, you know? And also it felt urgent because you wanna have a good time.

I just wanna have joy and fun.

And it's like why are we not talking about how to cultivate and make more joy? Why isn't that part of a curriculum in school? How do you make happiness for you? You know, what is your joy? And I think that's what we learn from the aunts in this film, is that we have these matriarchs who are like, "I know you're scared, but you cannot go into life fearful, because you will not reap the benefits of what your journey in this life is about.

And why did y-

Yeah, my, well, I, I was raised between Germany and the United States.

My mother was an opera singer, and we'd go for the opera seasons, and I was raised by my grandmother and my cousins.

But in Germany at that time, I mean, you had a TV with, you know, like, a, a show from Italy in black and white or a show from France, and it was anyone who could physically translate a story to you, and usually through humor, I was riveted by.

And then when we were in the States, I would watch Carol Burnett, Jerry Lewis, Lucille Ball, anyone with physical comedy abilities that could make you feel something without saying a lot-

[laughs]

It had nothing to do with her being German.

Maybe it did.

How did you think to put them in?

Well, there was a scene where, there is a scene where my character, who's cut herself off because she could sense people before and sense her children, but she has since... made a spell so her children don't remember their magic because she feels like it brings too much tragedy.

So she's blocked as well.

So she just wants normalcy, wants a normal life.

And she goes to this professor who's known for his spiritual magical powers and he unblocks people.

So he unblocks me, Sally, not me.

And the first thing that we hear, they were like, well, what should it be? Should it be the ancestors? And I was like, no.

How do we set up what's going on in this one?

Why do you think fans will really, really connect to her, finding her magic eventually and that joy that she's missing?

Well, I think we can all relate to it because the harder life gets, the more you say, why do I even bother anymore with an open heart? And it's easier just to say, I'm happy with what I have.

I will just do my life as it is.

And I will seemingly protect my daughters by not subjecting them to the same pain that I've had.

So I think moms everywhere will relate on a level.

And I think what's even more important, that the children of the mothers will see their mothers as a young woman, a dreamer, somebody who's given up and sacrificed.

I hope that young women will look to their mothers and go, I didn't know.

Speaking of a new generation of fans, Sandra basically broke the internet with a major soundtrack tease, reposting a clip of Olivia Rodrigo and Stevie Nicks singing Landslide and captioning it, angel voices that are part of an upcoming film.

Why is it hard, Sandy?

I mean, every situation is different.

You know, Lai came into my life when she was two and a half.

So there were some things that had already happened and set.

And I didn't have the benefit that I had with Lou, you know, day one.

And that is her journey.

It's also my journey to figure out and to navigate and to...

Yeah.

Mm-hmm

...

the set dec and the...

It's grand.

It's always grand.

Um, and I remember as a kid, I would be in the back of the car and my mother would always test me.

Like, she would play something and she goes, "What does that make you feel?" And I would s- I would lean in and I would say, "This feels like someone's losing someone or they're, they're r- looking for someone who's dead." You know, like, you, you could feel it when it's good.

Yeah

and terrifying.

And yes.

Yes.

Don't mind me answering for you.

How's it going? I'm in it.

You know, my mother always said to me, just wait till you have daughters.

Because I was a difficult child in that I didn't do anything, but I looked like I was about to do it all.

A

Hmm.

I knew it, and you have to quietly plan.

And I'm a very good planner with illness and, and because my father was ill, and he was, had horrible accidents, and my mother had cancer.

I feel like I'm very comfortable in a setting where somebody is, is, is ill.

I, it doesn't scare me.

Um, not the illness itself.

It doesn't scare me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Why this movie now? Why this subject matter?

Really great question.

Um, I, it, I, it was, it, it, like I, I'm a true believer in timing is there for a reason, and if you just lean into it a little bit, especially as the women that we are, we just happen to know instinctually and intuitively some things that we can't explain, nor can science explain it right now.

But it wasn't right, it wasn't right, it wasn't right.

I had, still had a bad taste in my mouth from an experience and ...

But it was just one day I said, "If we could say this, and the characters could be this, and it could have this," and turns out that's what Alice Hoffman wrote, and I go, "It's not an accident that that's what I was feeling at the time." And then because of schedules and it benefited the film, we shot in London where the tax incentives were so great for the film.

We could make the film emotionally and visually that we wanted to make for a price that Warner Brothers could afford.

[laughs]