Devon Sawa Once Refused to Talk About Casper. Before He Made Peace with It, His Agents Told Him to Quit Acting and Go Back to Canada
· Thought Catalog
Updated 2 minutes ago, October 14, 2026
Few lines from a ’90s movie have followed an actor quite like “Can I keep you?” haunts Devon Sawa, and he’ll admit he spent years trying to escape it.
“There was a time in my life I was like, ‘I don’t wanna talk about Casper. How dare you? I’m a thespian,’ you know?” the 48-year-old says. “But… I gotta embrace it. It’s why I’m here. It’s what got me here.”
The 1995 family fantasy had Sawa playing the human form of the friendly ghost alongside Christina Ricci, stepping in for the film’s final sequence in a role that launched his teen-star status. Casper pulled in nearly $291 million worldwide and returned to theaters in 2025 to mark its 30th anniversary.
Wanting to shed the teen-heartthrob label, Sawa chased grittier work, landing parts in Idle Hands (1999) and Final Destination (2000). Final Destination earned him a Saturn Award and put him on Dr. Dre’s radar. Dre saw the film and cast him as the obsessive fan in Eminem’s 2000 “Stan” video.
Those years also brought serious personal struggles. His drinking spiraled badly enough that his agents told him to quit acting and go back to Canada.
A drunk appearance at a family Christmas became his turning point; he completed 90 meetings in 90 days and has now been sober for roughly 18 to 19 years.
He crossed paths with Canadian producer Dawni Sahanovitch during that stretch. The two married in 2013 and share 2 children, Hudson and Scarlett.
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These days, Sawa says he’s made “peace” with Casper being a permanent part of his identity. “Doesn’t matter what I do nowadays. It doesn’t matter how cool the project is, I will always have to say, ‘Can I keep you?’ to somebody at some point. There will always be Casper stuff.”
His latest chapter puts him back in supernatural territory: he plays Mr. Cole, a warlock professor on the Disney series Coven Academy, opposite Tiffani Thiessen. He’s hoping this role sticks just as stubbornly: “I think [Coven Academy] is going to be one of those [shows] that hopefully in 20 years, people will be like, ‘Oh, Mr. Cole.’ And I won’t be able to shake that either.”
Coven Academy is streaming now on Disney+ and Hulu.
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