Iconic actor Ernie Hudson, known for his infamous role of Winston in 1984’s Ghostbusters, opened up about how emotionally difficult working on the set of Ivan Reitman’s film while on The Howard Stern Wrap-Up Show on February 17. He admitted that although he admired the director’s brilliant work, it was “the most difficult movie” he’s ever done psychologically because of the studio’s treatment of him as a Black man in the genre.
Hudson began by assuring the interviewers that his fellow actors, especially director Reitman “was really, really a brilliant man, and I have just so much love and appreciation for him.” He continued to say, however, that he was seen as an outsider in the eyes of the studio presiding over Ghostbusters. “I was the guy who was brought in, and so finding my place in the middle of that—and they were all welcoming and inclusive,” he said. “The studio wasn’t, and the studio continued not to be. So it made it very, very difficult because I was a part of it but then I very selectively was pushed aside.”
“When the posters came out, I’m not on the poster. It took a long time. I went to the 30th-anniversary release of the movie…and all the posters are three guys,” Hudson recalled. “Now I know the fans see it differently, and I’m so thankful for the fans because the fans basically identified with Winston, especially young; I don’t want to say minority kids, but a lot of kids.” He referenced the long-standing trope of Black representation in the comedy genre being disrupted by the fans of Winston, despite attempts to force him into that box.
“The original script, Winston, was in the very beginning of the movie. By the time we got ready to shoot the movie, Winston came in halfway through the movie. All those things…It definitely felt deliberate. And I’m still not trying to take it personally,” Hudson admitted that it tarnished some of the excitement that he should have surrounding one of his most prolific film roles.
“Anything bad, if you’re African-American in this country, anything bad happens to you, you can always blame it on because I’m Black. You don’t want to go there. That’s the last thing I want to do…I got nothing bad to say about anybody, but it was hard. It took me ten years to get past that and enjoy the movie and just embrace the movie. Ghostbusters was really hard to make peace with it.”
The Ghostbusters’ alum finally revealed that he was even in talks to be involved in a new movie installment in the franchise and that it was important to him to ensure that he wasn’t brought on as an “add-on.”
