Vinessa Shaw at Thanksgiving time. She then landed parts in a handful of television roles. She played a considerably large role in Disney's 1993 Halloween family film "Hocus Pocus" alongside Bette Midler, Sarah Jessica Parker, Kathy Najimy, Omri Katz, and a young Thora Birch. Shaw completed roles in various independent films for the remainder of the 1990s. In 1998, she enrolled at Barnard College in New York City, but dropped out to continue pursuing acting. Shaw was attending the college when she was approached by Stanley Kubrick for her role in "Eyes Wide Shut", playing an HIV-positive prostitute who is encountered by
Bette Midler Choice Award for her performance in the show and received a Golden Globe Award nomination the following year. Also in 2000, Midler made an uncredited cameo appearance in Nancy Meyers' fantasy rom–com "What Women Want", starring Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt. In the film, she portrayed a therapist who realizes that central character Nick, played by Gibson, is able to understand women's thoughts. Released to generally mixed reviews, it became the then-most successful film ever directed by a woman, taking in $183 million in the United States, and grossing upward of $370 million worldwide. The same year Midler starred in