Anthony Mackie and Jahi Winston star in the new horror comedy We Have a Ghost. The new Netflix movie follows a family as they move into their new house only to discover it is haunted by a ghost named Ernest. Kevin, the youngest of two teenage sons, befriends Ernest and helps him search for the truth about his past.
At the same time, Kevin's brother and father make a video of Ernest that goes viral, making the ghost a social media sensation overnight, which put both Ernest and the entire family on the CIA's radar. Written and directed by Christopher Landon We Have a Ghost is based on the short story "Ernest," written by Geoff Manaugh. The movie has an impressive cast, including David Harbour, Anthony Mackie, Jennifer Coolidge, Tig Notaro, and Jahi Winston.
Screen Rant spoke with Mackie and Winston about their new movie, We Have a Ghost. Mackie broke down the difficult father-son relationship between their characters. Winston explained why his character, Kevin, connects with the ghost Ernest.
Anthony Mackie & Jahi Winston on We Have a Ghost
Screen Rant: Guys, amazing job on this film. You do a tremendous job at bringing these characters to life, and Chris was really great at bringing the horror-comedy aspect of this film to life as well. Anthony, can you talk about the difficult father-son relationship in this film?
Anthony Mackie: Being a dad of a teenager is hard when you find yourself at an age where your kid's going from a baby to a young man. And just for myself, I still want to coddle, love, and treat my son like he's a baby. But now he's a teenager, so you have to give him that space to breathe and learn and become his own human being. That's kind of what the relationship is here. I'm still yearning for him to be my little guy, and my best friend; to be my bosom buddy. But he's trying to find his own way in his own space, so that creates the tension and the frustration between the two of us.
Absolutely. Jahi, your character's first instinct is to help others when he sees an opportunity. Why do you think he connects to Ernest so quickly?
Jahi Winston: I think immediately the thing that's very evident with Ernest is he's alone, he's an outsider, and I think Kevin feels like an outsider within his own family and among his peers. And so when Ernest kind of tries to do the whole thing, he scares him away. It fails because obviously Ernest is very bad at being intimidating, but also because Kevin can see through that, because he himself has his own defense mechanism in his everyday life. And so, I think the thing that connects them is that they're both ostracized in a way. I think that motivates Kevin to go out of his way to protect Ernest even more.
Anthony, on the flip side, why does your character see Ernest as a moneymaking opportunity?
Anthony Mackie: Because nobody else has a ghost. It's like if you have something and nobody else has it, everybody want a piece of that. It's just the idea of putting it out there through social media, and I think that's something that this movie does really well, is making it relatable to a contemporary society. You've never seen a ghost movie where it becomes an opportunity for popularity and financial gain. Nobody has ever monetized the ghosts.
That's totally true. Totally true. Do you guys believe in ghosts, or have you had any paranormal experiences? We'll start with you, Jahi.
Jahi Winston: I don't know about that, man. The jury's still out for me on whether or not I believe in ghosts. But if I have an encounter, which hopefully I do not, and it really leaves an impression on me? Then yeah, I'm open to it. I'm not open to it, but I'm open to the possibility that it exists.
That it could happen. How about you, Anthony?
Jahi Winston: You see he's from New Orleans, so you know how they be.
Anthony Mackie: Being from New Orleans is different. I'm pretty sure I've seen many a strange things. I'll say that. Just today we were shooting this thing, and it's a whole set, right? And a picture just flips off the wall.
About We Have a Ghost
Based on the short story "Ernest" by Geoff Manaugh, We Have a Ghost follows a family that moves into a house haunted by Ernest. One of the teenage boys, Kevin, bonds with Ernest and decides to help him discover the truth about his past and hopefully move on. Meanwhile, Kevin's family makes a viral video about Ernest turning him into an overnight sensation and putting a target on all their backs that brings the CIA knocking at their door.
Check out our other We Have a Ghost interviews here:
- David Harbour
- Christopher Landon
