Two summers ago, actress Lilia Buckingham was itching to get out of her hometown of Los Angeles and start college across the country at Boston University. She was relishing the chance to step behind the camera to focus on film production and put an end to the constant hustle of auditioning. The next phase of her life was all figured out — but as fate would have it, the universe had other plans.
“I decided I was going to take a step back from the whole ‘in front of the camera side’ of the industry, because I’d get so close to booking things, but then wouldn’t,” Buckingham, 19, tells GRAZIA USA. “Two weeks before I’m supposed to move into school, I booked Hocus Pocus 2. It was crazy and I could not be more grateful that the universe was like, ‘No girl, you’re staying in the acting business.'”
After a three-month audition process, multiple director sessions and chemistry reads, she landed the role of Cassie Traske in the Disney+ hit and ended up living at school for just a month before filming commenced in Rhode Island in the fall of 2021. “It was definitely one of the craziest months of my life, but amazing, nonetheless,” the star recalls.
In Hocus Pocus 2, Buckingham plays one of three friends who tries to save modern-day Salem from the resurrected Sanderson sisters, portrayed by Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy. The teen says acting alongside the three legends who reprised their roles from the 1993 hit was “surreal” and she still can’t quite believe it happened. “It’s just too crazy to comprehend.”
Before her big break, Buckingham was best known for her work with Brat TV, including on the series Dirt, Crown Lake (which she executive produced) and the movie Spring Breakaway. Despite her many roles within the Brat universe, one of the reasons Buckingham was ready to walk away from acting is because she’s well aware that rejection in the business is all but guaranteed for most performers. “I grew up in L.A. around so many other young actors and I knew that it’s such a hard career to be in and it’s almost impossible to book,” she explains. “It’s really, really tough because there’s obviously so many talented people out there and I think I knew it would be a dream to be in front of the camera; it’s what I loved to do. But I never wanted to get my expectations up because I kept getting my heart broken with all these no’s.”
Buckingham reasoned at the time that while her first love, acting, might never turn into a lasting relationship with the business, she could tap into her passion for writing since her résumé already included co-authoring the book Influence with Sara Shepard, writer of the bestseller Pretty Little Liars. “The universe is so funny. Once I had accepted that and was happy and excited, the universe was like: ‘You get the Hocus Pocus 2 role.’”
While the movie may have reeled the back-on-the-rise star into getting in front of the camera again, she’s currently continuing her film and television studies in Boston and hopes to one day own a production company that develops books into movies. She names as her inspiration Reese Witherspoon and the A-lister’s company Hello Sunshine, which is responsible for bringing adaptations of Gone Girl, Where the Crawdads Sing and other bestselling novels to theaters. “I would absolutely love to end up there one day,” Buckingham notes.
In the meantime, Buckingham tells GRAZIA USA she’s already started working toward the goal with a short film she’s writing, producing and possibly starring in that she’s “super passionate” about. “It’s been really nice just getting to have this creative freedom,” she says. “I’m so lucky and my creative juices are flowing.”
Buckingham is enjoying getting back into the flow of being a regular college kid, but there are moments when she’s reminded of her double life. “Somebody actually mentioned Hocus Pocus 2 the other day in one of our lectures talking about multimedia franchises and transmedia franchises and I was like, ‘I’m in that!’” Buckingham says.
Another recent day, the actress was walking on campus when she saw a girl dressed in a Hocus Pocus sweatshirt. “I was like, ‘I like your sweatshirt!’ It’s just really cool to see fun little things like that where I really get to just be like Hannah Montana.”
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Another aspect of fame that makes Buckingham’s reality a little different than the average student is the 1.5 million Instagram followers she began amassing years ago after befriending Mackenzie and Maddie Ziegler at MNR Dance Factory. It took Buckingham “a lot of learning” to figure out how to manage her social media-star status and strike the right balance between her public and private lives. “I think because I was exposed to social media so young and there is this new age of young people who are in the public eye, I felt for a long time that I owed my whole life to the people that followed me,” she shares. “And I’ve learned that it could not matter less. Now I just post whatever I want. I like to keep things at least a little bit private.”
One thing she doesn’t keep under wraps is her desire to use the platform to do good, which she does by promoting Positively Social, the charity she founded with the Zieglers in 2018. The organization’s mission is simple but difficult to achieve: Spread kindness and stop online bullying. “If I have this ability to speak to young people who are just like me, why wouldn’t I use it?” Buckingham asks, noting she was inspired after weathering what she calls a “bad experience” online. “I was outed to everyone in my life, so I came out on social media when I was 14.”
She managed to turn the medium used to wound her into a tool to help her heal, and she grew stronger as a result. “That was the only place that I really got to reclaim that story and reclaim my own personal power,” she says. “I was lucky enough to have such a positive, supportive reaction and it really gave me that closure that I needed to feel like I got to at least do something myself. And from there, I’ve always been a huge advocate in talking about important real-life things on social media when you feel inclined to, because it oftentimes will connect with someone. I’m also constantly using my films and my writing to tell stories of authentic, real young people and what they’re going through.”
With her life so full, Buckingham says she’s currently trying to slow down and welcome everything happening during this unique time, such as when her film Hocus Pocus 2 was trending on Twitter after its September 30 debut. “The weekend it came out, I literally just sat in my dorm room with my girlfriend and was like, ‘I’m going to feel all the love and feel how grateful I am and do some reflecting, do some journaling, be very peaceful and just really, really appreciate this once in a lifetime thing that is happening.’”
She adds, “I’m really, really lucky.”
