NCIS star Sean Murray recalls stepsister Troian Bellisario’s childhood ‘crush on’ him

NCIS’s Sean Murray recalled his stepsister Troian Bellisario “acting a little weird” around him when they first met.

The two became stepsiblings when Murray’s mother, Vivienne Murray, married the Pretty Little Liar star’s producer and screenwriter father, Donald P Bellisario, in 1998.

“[Bellisario] was acting a little weird around me when she first knew me,” Murray told Entertainment Weekly in a new interview.

“She then told me years later it was because when she was a kid, she had seen Hocus Pocus and had a crush on me and she was trying to work that out.”

Murray, 45, appeared in the original 1993 fantasy comedy film alongside Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy, when he was 14. Bellisario was eight at the time.

His role as Thackery Binx, the human boy-turned-black cat by the three Sanderson sisters, made him a first-time crush for a certain set of millennials.

“It always cracks me up,” Murray said of his former heartthrob status. “That has been brought up to me a couple of times.”

Despite a poor box office opening and dismal critical reviews, the film has since reached cult status.

“It was a bomb when it was first released,” the actor said. “At the time, we were just doing our thing. We didn’t know what it would become.”

He continued: “I was seeing the kids that grew up on Hocus Pocus, they now have kids, and they’re showing their kids Hocus Pocus.

“It’s really cool seeing the second generation discover Hocus Pocus and be like, ‘You know what? This is like the greatest Halloween movie ever made.’”

Most recently, the film received a second life in the form of a 2022 sequel, Hocus Pocus 2. Murray, however, was not involved in the new movie.

“To me, Hocus Pocus is really about those three women, those three witches,” he said.

“It actually makes total sense to me that you would have a newer group with the witches and not necessarily from the original group. You know, we’re all old and wrinkled now. Who wants to see us?”