Ghostbusters Star Ernie Hudson on New Sequel, Pay Disparities and ‘Disappointing’ 2016 Reboot: ‘Just Make Another Movie’

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myrnie Hudson is sitting under a bright light, with the cameras pointed directly at him. He Ghostbusters The star rose to fame in 1984 as the fourth member of the iconic demon-fighting quartet, alongside Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray and Harold Ramis. He today he is sitting down for a round of interviews to talk about the latest sequel. Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, in which his character, Winston Zeddemore, returns as a philanthropist who leads a new generation of paranormal pest eliminators. “40 years have passed. More than half of my life has been Ghostbusters on one level or another,” he tells me, but he has no problem with that. “I’ve been acting for close to 60 years and there are some movies I’ve done that I hope never get made. think about doing again.”

Cross-legged in a kind of optimistic, confident reclining, Hudson looks almost ridiculously good for his 78 years; You’d swear she still had 50 years of gas left in the tank. In the scheme of things, Ghostbusters It constitutes only a small part of Hudson’s career; She has worked steadily for almost her entire adult life, on projects like the Brandon Lee thriller. The RavenHBO’s gritty prison drama Ozand FBI comedy Miss Sympathy. But Ghostbustersunderstandably, it looms over everything.

“Most things come and go,” he says. “Not many people realized I was in three movies last year. But it’s just a job. It doesn’t give you special status. I have not been so successful, like some friends who can barely walk down the street or made so much money they can’t count it. “I’m still a working guy.”

Recovering the magic of Ghostbusters has always been a complicated proposition, going back to the first ridiculed sequel, Ghostbusters IIin 1989. After 2016’s divisive gender-swapped reboot, 2021’s Ghostbusters: Afterlife was a spectacularly errant first attempt to reunite the original ‘busters (including, via a much-maligned CGI scene, the late Harold Ramis). Frozen Empire picks up more or less where the film ends, with the ghost-hunting duties passed on to the daughter of Ramis’ Egon Spengler, played by Carrie Coon, and her family (husband Paul Rudd and their two teenage children, McKenna Grace and Strange things‘Finn Wolfhard). It’s a pretty packed billing: alongside these younger pups and a host of supporting characters, Aykroyd, Murray and Hudson return to don their beige jumpsuits.

The backstory of Hudson’s involvement in Ghostbusters It’s Hollywood tradition right now. Sony had originally wanted Eddie Murphy for the role, fresh from 48 hours and Commercial places. She turned them down and they eventually turned to Hudson, but by the time filming began, the role had been significantly reduced and removed entirely from the film’s first act. While Winston, an affable and outspoken late hire to the team, proved popular with fans, the fourth Ghostbuster was absent from much of the marketing.

It’s too reductionist, Hudson says, to attribute this to racism alone. “You know, being a person of African descent anywhere in the world, we’re all learning how to live together and get along and realize that we’re all connected,” she says. “And it’s very tempting, sometimes, to blame racism for anything that doesn’t work in your life. But there are many things that influence it. It is not so simple”.

Hudson says he was paid less than his co-stars, adding: “We can say it’s a racial issue, but I think if Eddie Murphy had played the role I played, he would have been paid very well. “I think studios are in the business of making money and they pay what they think they should.”

I ask him about one of the most intriguing aspects of Ghostbusters‘ Origins: Aykroyd’s deeply held (and rather eccentric) belief in real-life ghosts. Hudson smiles with amusement and describes the SNL Funnyman as a “wealth of information” on the topic of the paranormal. But then, Hudson can relate on some level. “I grew up in a family that believed in spirits, in the supernatural,” she says. “But no one wanted to investigate it. Most of them wanted to stay away from it! “It wasn’t something you were grateful for.”

Hudson was raised in Michigan by his grandmother after his mother died of tuberculosis when he was only two years old; He never knew his father. He wanted to enlist in the US Marine Corps, but was unable to due to his asthma, which prompted him to train as an actor. “When I first went to college (at Wayne State University) I was already a single father,” he recalls. (Hudson has four children, two from his first marriage and two from his second, with his wife of nearly 40 years, Linda Kingsberg.) “I have always had the responsibility of raising a family, which requires me, you know, get this job,” he says. “If it’s dramatic, I have to make someone cry. If it’s funny, I have to make someone laugh.”

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And he got the jobs, from more science fiction Leviathanto psychological thrillers (1992s). The Hand That Rocks the Cradle), to comedies even broader than Ghostbusterslike the one from 1994 Empty-head. Over the past two decades, he has become best known for his work on television, earning particularly high praise for his portrayal of prison warden Leo Glynn in Oz between 1997 and 2003. It’s true that he has never stopped working and has around 250 credits to his name, including recurring roles on emergencies, Heroes, Desperate housewivesand Modern Family.

After Ghostbusters When he became a sensation, Hudson had a little more influence, but only a little. In 1986, when they were casting The real ghostbusters cartoon spin-off, he was the only member of the original cast who volunteered to voice his animated counterpart. The producers told him to audition, which he did, before finally handing the role to a pre-night Arsenio Hall. During the negotiations for Ghostbusters II In 1989, it was Murray who fought for a bigger role for his co-star. (“(Murray) said he wouldn’t do another one unless I was involved… That doesn’t happen a lot in this industry.”)

Decades passed and Ghostbusters interest waned, until the female-led reboot in 2016. Hudson had a small cameo in the film, playing a new character; When she is asked now about the project, she is somewhat skeptical. “Look, I’m a fan of (director) Paul Feig, so I don’t have anything negative to say about him. Apart from: I don’t really understand why you reboot, you know what I mean? “Just make another movie.”

He seems as baffled by that movie as many fans were, though he stipulates that the cast (Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones) are all “brilliantly funny in their own right.” He adds: “The fans were really interested in the story and the characters and I think it was disappointing. “I enjoyed the movie but I don’t think it was what the fans expected.”

After Winston’s return in Future life and Frozen Empire, Hudson feels that the character, originally introduced as a kind of audience surrogate, has finally received his flowers. “Sony is no longer the same studio it was 40 years ago and they’ve really stepped up and given some dimension to the character,” she says. “You have to give Sony credit for being open to listening to my feelings, because in the first one they didn’t.”

The end of Frozen Empire It leaves the door open for more films in the future, something Hudson says hasn’t been discussed yet. But he totally agrees. “I would love for Winston Zeddemore to be the Nick Fury of Ghostbusters,” he says, alluding to the foothold of Samuel L. Jackson’s eyepatch in the Marvel cinematic universe. More than anything, though, he’s glad that things worked out for Winston: of all the original Ghostbusters, his arc succeeds the most successfully, turning him from a marginalized follower to an influential leader. Ray and Venkman’s slightly directionless fates seem almost discouraging in comparison: they ran out of path years ago.

“I wanted Winston to be an example of what’s possible,” he says. “I mean, I’m 78 years old. I want to be a healthy man. I want to be a man with at least a few dollars. My wife and I have been together for almost 50 years. “I want to be just an example of a good life.”

When the inevitable sequel arrives, who will they call? I don’t think there is any doubt.

‘Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire’ is now in theaters