Thora Birch: Unstoppable | No Tofu Magazine 

Childhood stardom is a double-edged sword. Scratch that—it has thousands of edges, waiting to slice you open upon one wrong turn. Debuting yourself to the world at seven-years-old, ringlet-haired and cherub-faced, is not always the most tactful in regards to long-term career goals. It is likely your IMDB page will peak before you can legally buy a drink. It could be a gradual decline, a la Haley Joel Osment, or an abrupt surrender to drugs like River Phoenix. Many actors will interminably brandish the child-star label, destined to romantic comedies and straight-to-DVD movies. And sometimes, just when it seems you are setup for glory, collaborating with Oscar nominees and sought-after directors, your time in the spotlight will screech to a halt just as quickly as it was thrust upon you. Then what?

Thora Birch was seven when she booked her first national television commercial and nine her first movie. In Hocus Pocus she was 11-year-old Dani, on the run from witches played by the likes of Sarah Jessica Parker and Bette Midler. Just a few years later she starred alongside Rosie OíDonnell in the coming of age story Now and Then, and at 17 she bared her chest in American Beauty, where she began to gain serious momentum, working with Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening. She played a drug-addicted teen in The Smokers and went on to cultivate her awkward, angsty persona in 2001ís Ghost World. Then, all of a sudden, she was gone. Gone from our collective vision, at least, save for airplane screens and ABC Family reruns, where Hocus Pocus would air each Halloween and fill our hearts with nostalgia. So isnít this appropriate, I think to myself, when I meet her at a photo shoot on a late October afternoon.

It is a Monday and it strikes me how little she has changed. She sits facing a mirror, curling iron in hair as makeup is applied to one eye. She casually reaches out to shake my hand and is quick to apologize for making me wait. Before wardrobe she wears a tee shirt, black pants, and tennis shoes, an ensemble that seems markedly non-descript and unglamorous. She is polite, considerate even, but her non-chalance and slightly awkward demeanor harken back to the roles I grew up watching.

A couple hours later, mid-shoot, she changes out of a silk shirt and waist-defining belt that accentuates her famous hourglass figure to sit down with me and recap her life and career. Her parents, both porn actors into her childhood, were weary of her joining the industry, and so it was her babysitter that took her to her first audition. By seven, Birch was hooked. Though Mom and Dad gradually warmed to the business, when they urged a stronger scholastic focus Birch was adamant, “No way—this is going to keep going, this is my thing, this is what I do.” She fondly reminisces on reading scripts, working with Elijah, (Wood, she later clarifies), and the opulence of set-life.  “Working on Hocus Pocus, I don’t know if I’ve ever had so much fun in my life.” But then her voice raises a few octaves as she recalls the confusing time between childhood and her teenage years. “When I was 14, 15, I was awkward. I wasn’t a kid anymore but still way too young to be doing all the other stuff so I got a little bit down.”

Though, in reality, her glory days had yet to arrive. After a few coming of age movies, Birch finally came of age in the role that made her a household name, and it was precisely this exclusion from the industry that lent itself to a stellar performance. “Around late 15 I read the script for American Beauty and I was like, ‘Oh my god, this is amazing.’ Jane was somebody that I connected to in the sense that she was not really feeling included.” Shortly thereafter, in 2001, Birch starred alongside Scarlett Johannson in Ghost World, which tells the tale of an offbeat high-school graduate’s mostly platonic relationship with an older man (Steve Buscemi). She was swiftly making the transition from childhood star to teen actress, moving toward the A list. Then followed three TV movies and an unintentional and unexpected recession from the public eye.

Things didn’t stop after that, though, she clarifies, and they still haven’t stopped. She is quick to dispute any notion of her stepping back or taking a break, vehement about the fact that she was ‘always working’. Though, Birch mentions, she may have been pigeonholed. “There’s this thing in the business where if you do one kind of role that’s all you get.” There were a few hiccups along the way, she admits, some of which were more publicized than her work. In 1999, Birch was slated to appear as Chris Klein’s sister in Alexander Payne’s Election, a role later filled by Jessica Campbell. It was allegedly ‘creative differences’ that led to her dismissal from the film, though she remains elusive on the subject. “I didn’t really think about it too much other than I was told I was going to get some kind of letter. I never got it, but whatever,” she explains, eager to move on to a less controversial career point.

But her path was becoming less steady and her reign as indie queen had all but dissipated.  The years after Ghost World were filled with a slew of short-lived television series and low-budget horror films. She asserts, though, in a manner I’m not sure is optimistic or defensive, that while her choices weren’t Oscar-worthy, she was satisfied. “In my 20s it was working with what was coming my way. It would be fun to do something a little more action or a little darker or delve into the horror realm. Fight a dragon, sure why not?”

So, of course, I avoid the subject of her Dracula expulsion, something I’m sure she’s grown tired of addressing. In 2010 she was set to make her off-Broadway debut as Lucy Seward, the central love interest of Dracula, a role that never came to fruition. The accounts of the incident vary greatly. Paul Alexander, the director, alluded to inappropriate behavior with her father being on set, while Birch and her father explained that she was fired due to Alexander’s qualms with her performance.

More recently Birch has extended her pursuits beyond the world of acting. She obtained a degree in Legal Studies at Kaplan Online College and currently maintains a blog in which she sporadically chronicles her life and moods in the form of angry rants and broad philosophical anecdotes. She has also drafted a screenplay, is working on a television pilot, and has begun producing, perhaps to aid the movie-making process when she finds a part she likes.

In 2012 she co-produced (with her father) and starred in Petunia, written and directed by Ash Christian, which details the tragic and darkly neurotic tribulations of the Petunia family. Birch plays Vivian, a New York party girl who has just married into the family. Upon discovering her pregnancy she fails to unearth any maternal instinct or desire to settle down. Birch first read and fell in love with her friend’s script when he proposed she play a lead role, though she maintained some reservations about the prickly character. “I was like, wow, this is funny and reflective of New York and LA. But I didn’t really like my character. I was like, I should try to do something where the character just maddens you.” And so she went for it, to mixed reviews, though the casting, it is agreed, was a strong point.

She explains her need to be challenged, and her desire to seek out creative outlets that allow her to stretch herself, though she is eager to get back into acting, after recently finding representation. I ask her what is next and she replies with a long-winded and open-ended response. “I like to be challenged. Apart from that, it’s just finding those stories again. Or people I want to work with or just doing a little something just to do it because that’s what actors do. So it’s all of that. I’m just a little bit more open-minded.” After our interview she retreats back to the parking lot to stand with a friend she brought along, while the rest of the crew finishes lunch. As I’m leaving, she gives me a genuine thank you and a hug goodbye, and it occurs to me that Birch is exactly like some of her forlorn, imaginary counterparts—eager to please with a desire to fit in, but just not exactly sure how.