Original Ghostbusters on the Hardest Part About Filming ‘Afterlife’
Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd and Ernie Hudson appeared on NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon and Late Night with Seth Meyers last night (November 15) to promote Ghostbusters: Afterlife. In both appearances, they touched on the hardest part about returning to their Ghostbusters characters.
When asked by Meyers what it was like to return to those characters and to put on the Ghostbusters jumpsuits and gear, Murray said, “It was painful. It was painful is what it was. It was physically and emotionally painful. You forget how heavy it is to carry a small refrigerator on your back for hours and hours a day. And then they say, ‘Okay, guys. Get down on the ground. Cut! Okay, stand up. And get down on the ground again.’ That’s what we did. And I’m like, ‘S—! We did this 20 years ago?’ We did this a long time ago. You’re basically falling on the ground and having to get up with a small refrigerator on your back.”
Murray also said on The Tonight Show, “It hurt. It was a lot of pain. The nice thing about working with a classically trained [actor like Ernie] is he helps you back to your feet.”
Of course, it wasn’t all pain revisiting these iconic characters. Hudson mentioned, “When I got in the suit with Bill and Dan and seeing Sigourney [Weaver], it was almost spiritual. I was almost in tears. It was great.”
The emotional aspect of revisiting the Ghostbusters is something director Jason Reitman touched on in an interview published in October saying, “I don’t think I was prepared for what it would feel like when the original guys walk on set in their flight suits. It’s like seeing superheroes. And it feels very special.”
Reitman added, “It’s also very intimidating. And it is an immediate reminder of what we were so presumptuous to attempt, which is to make another film that is a chapter in this larger story. It’s one thing to direct all new characters, because at that point, you can almost say that you’re making fan fiction. When Bill and Ernie and Dan walk in wearing flight suits, it becomes very real, very quickly. This is a ‘Ghostbusters’ movie.”
Ghostbusters: Afterlife opens in theaters this Friday (November 19.)
The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon
Late Night with Seth Meyers
Ghostbusters: Afterlife – Still Images
