The original Ghostbusters: Then and now
While we've been blessed with a number of Ghostbusters reboots over the years, nothing will ever beat the original films.
Starring the dream team of Ray, Egon, Peter and Winston, played by Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis, Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson, along with a host of iconic supporting characters, the 1984 Ghostbusters holds a special place in our hearts.
To celebrate the 40-year anniversary of one of the the best movies of the '80s, we're asking: 'Who you gonna call?'
Just kidding, we're asking: Where is the cast now?
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Then: Dan Aykroyd
Saturday Night Live alum Dan Aykroyd, who played Dr. Raymond Stantz, came up with the original Ghostbusters idea.
Aykroyd says he was inspired to write the script because his "family business" was the paranormal. He told Entertainment Weekly: "My great grandfather was an Edwardian spiritualist. There's a book called 'History of Ghosts'. You can get it on Amazon. My dad wrote it. It's about mediumship and transmediumship and the afterlife and survival of the consciousness after death, so that was the kind of stuff I was reading as a kid."
The first script was "much darker than what was seen and was less accessible" said Aykroyd. It was set in "inner space" with multiple Ghostbusters competing in a futuristic setting. It was also written with friend John Belushi in mind, but Belushi sadly passed away in 1982.
The idea stalled. At an impasse, Aykroyd reached out to creative partners Ivan Reitman and Harold Ramis, who came on board the project and helped shape Ghostbusters into what we know it today.
Now: Dan Aykroyd
Dan Aykroyd has continued his varied and successful acting career, starring in movies like My Girl (1991) and Pearl Harbor (2001) among many others.
Aykroyd has also been actively involved in every Ghostbusters reboot following the two original 1984 and 1989 movies. Starting in 2009, he teamed up with Harold Ramis to write the Ghostbusters video game.
Then, for the all-woman reboot in 2016, Aykroyd played a taxi driver and also served as Executive Producer. In the 2021 and 2024 reboots – Afterlife and Frozen Empire - the actor reprised his role as Dr. Raymond Stantz. He also served as Executive Producer.
Off screen, Aykroyd founded high-end alcohol brand Crystal Head Vodka in 2007.
Then: Harold Ramis
Harold Ramis played the role of Dr. Egon Spengler – the 'brain' – and was also brought on to co-write the final Ghostbusters script with Dan Aykroyd. He teamed up with Aykroyd to write the sequel too.
Of their time working together, Aykroyd credited Harold for giving the story shape.
Harold Ramis: 1944-2014
Harold Ramis had a storied career, with films like Groundhog Day (1993), Analyse This (1999) and Analyse That (2002) and Year One (2009) crediting him as the writer and director. In 2009, Ramis teamed up with Dan Aykroyd again to write the Ghostbusters video game.
Sadly, Ramis passed away in 2014 at the age of 70.
In the 2021 reboot Ghostbusters: Afterlife, Ramis's Dr. Egon Spengler character returns. Ramis's family gave their blessing for a hologram image of the late actor and director to appear in the movie.
Then: Bill Murray
Bill Murray played Dr. Peter Venkman in the two Ghostbusters films. A friend of Aykroyd and director Ivan Reitman, as well as an ex-Saturday Night Live star, Murray was brought on to the project after reading the script. Aykroyd recalls that Murray was usually "hard to pin down" but was impressed with the story and committed immediately.
Murray was supposed to fill the role of the 'Mouth' character. As in, he always had a quippy joke to tell and balanced out Aykroyd's 'Heart', Ramis's 'Brain' and Hudson's 'Everyman'.
Now: Bill Murray
A beloved comedic actor, Murray has carried his deadpan humour through iconic films like Groundhog Day (1993), The Royal Tenenbaums (2001) and Lost in Translation (2003).
Then: Ernie Hudson
The actor who would come to be associated with Winston Zeddemore for the rest of his career nearly didn't play his iconic character. Aykroyd has since shared that Ernie Hudson's role was originally supposed to go to Eddie Murphy but the comedian couldn't sign on because of other commitments.
And that's not the only hiccup Hudson experienced during the filming of the first movies. When the then- 38-year-old first received the script for Winston, he had a much larger part in the movie but it got widdled down to a supporting role by the time they filmed. "It wasn't an easy road. Ghostbusters, I would say, it was probably the most difficult movie I ever did just from the psychological perspective," Hudson told the Hollywood Reporter in 2023. "All those things…It definitely felt deliberate. And I'm still not trying to take it personally."
Hudson said it wasn't the team of Reitman, Aykroyd and Ramis that made him feel unwelcome, but the studio. When the posters got released to promote the film, Hudson – a core part of the Ghostbusters team – wasn't even featured. But Hudson remains classy about his difficulties with the original films.
"I got nothing bad to say about anybody, but it was hard. It took me 10 years to get past that and enjoy the movie and just embrace the movie. Ghostbusters was really hard to make peace with it," he said.
Now: Ernie Hudson
Hudson has admitted it took him years after his Ghostbusters fame to find another movie. He told the Hollywood Reporter, "When you start out in the business, I was always told it's almost impossible to succeed. But if you get in a major movie from a major studio and it comes out and it opens number one, it will change your career. Well, Ghostbusters didn't do any of that for me. I was working pretty nonstop, I did Ghostbusters, and it was two and a half years before I got another movie."
After that initial hiccup, Hudson landed roles in iconic films like The Basketball Diaries (1995) and Miss Congeniality (2000) and played a recurring role on cult HBO show Oz (1997-2003). He has worked consistently since the 80s, first reprising his role as Winston in 2009 for the Ghostbusters video game. Winston, the only Ghostbuster without a doctorate, was given a doctor title in the game which has since been considered a 'canon' move.
Hudson has also appeared alongside his colleagues in all the Ghostbusters reboots, including the 2016 version where he played 'Uncle Bill' and the 2021 and 2024 reboots playing Winston. Notably, in the last two reboots, Dr. Winston Zeddemore is portrayed as a successful entrepreneur who started a supernatural research lab.
"For me, it's very, very exciting to see that Winston has used his past 40 years effectively. He's done very well in life, not dependent on the Ghostbusters – but he's been able to help the Ghostbusters. So many kids really loved the character and identified with him because he was a down-to-earth guy, and it was very important for me that they see an evolution, and that they see Winston as not having just stayed in that position," he told Screen Rant.
Then: Annie Potts
In the original film, Annie Potts played the lovable but firm receptionist Janine who kept the ghost-busting boys in line.
Before being cast as Janine, Potts was a Golden Globe-nominated actress of stage and screen. She told The Guardian in 2024 that this gave her a different technique compared to the others in the "tightknit" boys club. "I was trained in theatre, and they're quintessentially improvisation people. I'd done some in theatre school, but I like a good script – memorise it, think about it.
"The improvisation thing scared me, because I thought the script was so good. But they were always trying to make it better. I thought that was the wildest thing – the actors were allowed to make up lines. Like, what?" Potts said she liked it because she became their "straight man".
At 31, Potts was also a single mother when the 1984 film was released and catapulted her to fame.
