While Ghostbusters became a beloved classic, star Ernie Hudson reveals the unfair treatment making the film that affected him for years. Ghostbusters centers around the story of three parapsychologists as they come together to face off against ghosts after being fired from their posts at Columbia University. After meeting and hiring a fourth Ghostbuster, Winston Zeddemore (Hudson), the team is forced to face off against a terrifying creature to save the world from devastation.
Ghostbusters' massive success gave rise to many upcoming Ghostbusters movies and TV shows. Unfortunately, Hudson never felt he benefited from much of the accolade the franchise earned through the years.
In an interview with The Howard Stern Show, he admitted that he felt excluded by the Ghostbusters marketing, which promoted the other three Ghostbusters and ignored him. Check out his quote below via IndieWire:
“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. 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. Ivan was really, really a brilliant man and I have just so much love and appreciation for him. 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. 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. 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. It wasn’t an easy road. It was probably the most difficult movie I ever did just from the psychological perspective… And I’m still not trying to take it personally. 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 10 years to get past that and enjoy the movie and just embrace the movie. ‘Ghostbusters’ was really hard to make peace with it. 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.”
Winston Ignored As The Fourth Ghostbuster Explained
Unfortunately, Winston was the latecomer among the original Ghostbusters, who were all at least coworkers before putting together the titular team. Coming later in the film than the rest and not having as many lines as the others made him a target for the marketing materials to utterly ignore. While Ghostbusters 4 brought back Hudson briefly, he was still a smaller name among the other cast members since the first movie. Since Ghostbusters, Hudson did appear in major projects, such as The Crow and HBO's Oz.
Hudson did reprise the character in Ghostbuster II in a similarly underdeveloped screen time. The actor again returned as Winston in 2021's Ghostbuster: Afterlife, where the character reunited with the original team in the film's final act. However, the post-credit scene hinted that the Ghostbusters member may have a larger role in the franchise moving forward, which could demonstrate Winston's value as part of the team after being overlooked for so long.
While Hudson may not want to call attention to it, race likely played a factor in why he was excluded from marketing materials and future projects. Though Hudson is thriving in the Quantum Leap reboot, the fact that Ghostbusters failed to propel his career the way it should have is possibly race-related, given Hollywood's reluctance to embrace him. Nevertheless, Ghostbusters failed to highlight Winston and Hudson for years, and the actor comes forward to discuss the injustice.
Source: The Howard Stern Show (via IndieWire)