Paul Feig: I am an action junkie!
SINGAPORE — Produced and directed by Ivan Reitman from a story by Harold Ramis and Dan Aykroyd (who also both starred in it with Bill Murray as the three eccentric parapsychologists who started as ghost-catching business in New York City), Ghostbusters, the 1984 supernatural horror comedy, is back. Directed by Paul Feig
(Bridesmaids, The Heat, Spy, etc.), the reboot stars all-female Ghostbusters played by Melissa McCarthy as Abby, the paranormal expert who dedicates her life to studying ghosts; Kristen Wiig as Erin, the physicist who tries to bring a scientific grounding into it; Kate McKinnon as the engineer who builds the physical equipment to fight ghosts; and Leslie Jones as Patty who knows the ins and outs of New York.
During the Sony Summit in this city two weeks ago, Feig and Melissa represented the movie, also including Inferno (the third of the Dan Brown trilogy starring Tom Hanks and directed by Ron Howard) and Magnificent
Seven. (There’s an embargo in the two films showing in September and October, respectively, so more on them later.)
The following story Feig is a wrap-up of the press conference and the TV interviews, plus input from the movie’s production notes. (The interview with McCarthy will come out on Sunday’s [July 10] Conversations with Ricky Lo.)
We had fun watching some footage of the film last night. Is there more to come in the way of action and special effects?
“Yes, definitely! Besides making it funny, one of the main things I wanted to do with this movie was to really have fun with the action and the scope and with the special effects. It has an amazing, amazing cast! You know, it has been 32 years after the original movie and I wanted to reboot this for a new generation.” The action scenes are really hilarious.
“I’m just an action junkie. I love action. And, you know, when we did Spy two years ago, it was so much fun doing that level of stunts, so I thought it would be fun to bring that level of stunts to Ghostbusters. When the original one came out, it was so cool to see them shoot the proton guns. Thirty-two years later, I think you need to add more to that and have the Ghostbusters do hand-to-hand combat with ghosts at some time.” The ghosts look ghostly beautiful and so really funny.
“I also wanted to make sure that the Ghostbusters were not acting against tennis balls with all the CGI (Computer-Generated Imagery). I really wanted them to be in contact with the ghosts.” Oh, so there are real ghosts in the cast (joke!)?
(Laughs) “Since ghosts are people who have died, we cast actors. But, you know, whenever they are interacting with a ghost, we made sure to cast an actor who was in full makeup and in costume, and then we would just augment the scene with CGI so that they could have a more realistic performance.” The ghost actors are great! The fight scenes are fantastic!
“We hired a giant stunt team. I’m such a fan of Asian cinema and I love stunt people in those movies, and the martial arts and all that. So it’s all in there. By the way, we made the actors look like real ghosts, with the help of CGI afterwards.”
If there were to be another Ghostbusters movie, would you consider setting it in Asia?
“I would very much consider that. Again, I am a huge fan of Asian cinema and would love to work here. Yeah, that would be almost a no-brainer for me, I have to say.” You know, there are all kinds of ghosts in the Philippines. Maybe you would like to shoot some scenes in the Philippines? “Oh really? That would be interesting! Is that an invitation? I will keep that in mind.” Do you believe that there are ghosts?
“Oh yes, I believe in ghosts that’s why I love doing this movie because I expected to meet ghosts. But so far, I have yet to have an encounter with one.”
Chris as the dim-witted receptionist is fun to watch. You turned him into an effective comedian. “It’s funny because there’s this handsome, funny guy. He walks in and he tells a joke and you’re like, ‘Oh ho-ho-ho, you’re so funny,’ even if it’s kind of not that funny. I kind of thought, ‘Yeah, that receptionist should be played by Chris.’ Like he’ll be a handsome, funny guy. And he turned out to be ballsout funny, very hilarious. Melissa said, ‘It’s not fair. You can’t look like that and be that funny!’ And then he can sing too, right?”
(Melissa, laughing: I know. He did start singing, we were trying to look up somebody and we were talking about music. And I said, “What song is that?” And he started singing it, and I was like, “Shut up! Don’t.” For God’s sake, can he sing?” And he went, “Well, I can carry a tune.” I was like, “Just don’t, because I’m going to pretend that you’re terrible at something or I’ll hate you. So just shut it and don’t sing, ever.) “He knits a mean sweater, too.” (Melissa: He made this dress.)
In the original, you have all-male Ghostbusters. In this one, you have all-female Ghostbusters. Is this some kind of a nod to woman empowerment?
“You know what? I love working with funny women and realized when I was going to make this movie, why did the original movie work so well? It worked those four Ghostbusters were, at the time, the funniest people working. I said, ‘I need to create that chemistry here. I know the funniest women in the planet. I’m going to put them in this movie.’ And that was really the only agenda I had to make people laugh that way.”
You worked with Melissa and Kristen, two big comedy stars with a little bit different comedy styles. What do you think about that difference?
“When putting this movie together, you want to make sure you have four different comedic energies and yet in service of the same type of comedy. What I love about Melissa is that she can do anything so honestly we’ve done movies. Look at our movies together. She played brash, that kind of person in Bridesmaids but in Spy, it was fun to have her be this meek person who comes out of her shell.
“With Kristen, she’s playing the character who believed in ghosts and was best friends with Melissa’s character. As a kid, Kristen’s character saw a ghost in her room every night for a year. Nobody believed her. They put her in therapy. They all called her Ghost Girl at school, because they thought she was crazy. They just wore her down. So she left to become a real scientist whereas, uh, Melissa’s character stayed the course. And then when Kristen’s character comes back for a different reason, and then they see a ghost together, then they are unified. But it was just fun to have that. The firm believer, the one who waivered, but they’re both friends and they’re both strong, smart women. That was really fun.”
I’m sure it helped a lot that the four actresses have worked together before and are friends.
“It was important to me to cast actors who were friends in real life because when you do that, you get a level of camaraderie. Realness and warmth among them that you don’t sometimes get when you put actors together who don’t know each other.” (Melissa and Kristen did Bridesmaids and were on Saturday Night Live together; while Kate and Leslie are now on Saturday Night Live.) “Kate is such a physical comedienne but has this inner oddness that provided the movie with a weirdo energy. Leslie is just an explosion that comes onto the set.” (Presented by Columbia Pictures in association with Village Roadshow Pictures, Ghostbusters is an Ivan Reitman production opening nationwide on Friday, July 15.) (E-mail reactions at entphilstar@yahoo.com. You may also send your questions to askrickylo@ gmail.com. For more updates, photos and videos visit www.philstar.com/funfare or follow me on www.twitter/therealrickylo.)