DETROIT — Sam Richardson has been climbing Hollywood's ladder for 10 years, but he knew he'd reached a new career plateau when people started dressing up as his characters for Halloween.
"I've had people dress up as Richard Splett before," says Richardson, on a Zoom call from Los Angeles earlier this week, referring to his character from HBO's "Veep."
More recently, he's had people sending him pictures of themselves dressed up as his characters from the sketch comedy series "I Think You Should Leave," whether it be sparkly gold jackets from the "Little Buff Boys" sketch or sparkly blue jackets from "Baby of the Year." "That's always an iconic level, a stratosphere of being a professional, when somebody's like, 'I love you so much I want to be you for Halloween,'" he says.
Now the native Detroiter (and former star of "Detroiters") is entering the Halloween canon himself with his role in "Hocus Pocus 2," the sequel to the 1993 family favorite, in which he plays the owner of a magic shop and a devoted admirer of the Sanderson sisters, the trio of witches played in the original (and once again) by Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker and Kathy Najimy. The movie is now streaming on Disney+.
Richardson had a leg up in prepping for the role, being that he was already a major fan of the original "Hocus Pocus," the Disney comedy which was considered a moderate commercial disappointment at the time of its original release but has since gained a sizable cult following.
Richardson says he had the VHS tape of the movie as a child and later the DVD as an adult.
"There's no hyperbole when I say I'm a superfan of this movie," says the 38-year-old. So when he got the phone call to be in the follow-up, "it was without question, a thousand and 10 times over, yes," he says.
The Disney sequel — he had already worked with Najimy on "Veep," but when meeting Midler and Parker he says he had to keep his fandom in check — is the latest step in the continuing ascent of the former Wayne State University student and 2002 graduate of University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy, who grew up shuffling between Detroit and his mother's home country of Ghana.
Richardson, who studied theater in high school and later at Wayne State, got his start in comedy at the Second City Detroit in the early '00s and then followed the Second City path to Chicago.
He eventually moved to Los Angeles and started making inroads in show business, and received his break after joining the cast of "Veep's" third season in 2014.
He's since been steadily popping up in supporting roles in big screen comedies left and right. That's his smiling, affable face in the sequels to "Horrible Bosses" and "Neighbors," that's him in 2016's reboot of "Ghostbusters," and that's him in "Spy," "Office Christmas Party" and "Good Boys," along with scores of others. He even got his action hero on (and fulfilled a lifelong dream in doing so) in last year's alien warfare dust-up "The Tomorrow War."
On TV, Richardson has appeared in dozens of projects, including "Arrested Development," "The Office," "Drunk History," "New Girl," "Portlandia," "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and even a Halloween-themed episode of "Nailed It!"
"Detroiters" — which he co-created and starred in with fellow Metro Detroiter Tim Robinson, his former teacher at Second City Detroit, and which ran for two seasons on Comedy Central — paid loving homage to his hometown, and the local advertisements he grew up watching on TV. He's continued collaborating with Robinson on his Netflix sketch comedy series "I Think You Should Leave," which is soon due to return for its third season.
And this year Richardson landed an Emmy nomination, his first major awards recognition, for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his role in "Ted Lasso's" second season. (He lost to Nathan Lane for "Only Murders in the Building.")
To hear Richardson tell it, things are going so well that he feels like he won the lottery — twice.
"The odds of getting to be a professional actor, first off, are very thin," says Richardson. "And then to get to star in TV shows and movies is its own second lottery on top of that. I'm very lucky with where my life and my career has taken me. Very thankful, very excited and very happy."
Richardson, who makes casual allusions to "Harry Potter" and the '80s action cartoon "Thundercats" in conversation, credits his drive, his success and his ability to navigate his career to the work ethic instilled in him by his father and the confidence given to him by his mother.
"My dad raised me to show up early and come as prepared as you can, because that's your job," he says. "And so much of my confidence in myself comes from my mom. Both my parents believe in me so much, that's 100%. But my mom is to the point where it's like it doesn't make sense how much she believes in me. It's very sweet. I'm like, 'obsess much?'" he says, laughing.
And Richardson, whose Apple TV+ comic-mystery series "The Afterparty" was recently renewed for a second season, plans to keep at it, to keep making his mom proud and to keep having a lot of irons in the fire. It's worked for him so far, and he's got more future Halloween costumes to play.
"I always want to do as much as I can, but I don't want to do too much," Richardson says. "I don't want to overwhelm. At least for myself, I don't want to be the guy who's always like, 'I did this and this and this and this and this,' because that's too much, and people shut off. You want to do just enough — and maybe a little bit more."
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'HOCUS POCUS 2'
MPAA rating: PG (for action, macabre/suggestive humor and some language)
Running time: 1:43
How to watch: Disney+
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