What Bill Murray Taught Sigourney Weaver About Comedy On The Set Of Ghostbusters

Sigourney Weaver and Bill Murray in Ghostbusters

Ghostbusters fans, like fans of any other upcoming project, and being forced to wait for the return of their favorite proton pack slinging heroes, as Ghostbusters: Afterlife, which was supposed to come out next month, is now set for early next year. If, however, you need a Ghostbusters fix in the meantime, Josh Gad brought most of the cast of the original Ghostbusters together for his Together Apart YouTube series, and Sigourney Weaver revealed some great advice she received from co-star Bill Murray while filming.

Sigourney Weaver was hardly new when she made Ghostbusters, she was already a pretty big name thanks to her starring role in Alien. However, it seems that she had a thing or two to learn about making comedies, as the actress explains that while she tried to properly prepare herself for a scene in which she was going to see something terrifying, Bill Murray found an entirely different way to prepare her for the scene. According to Weaver...

I’m still giggling about the fact Billy came up to me. It was maybe the second scene. I was preparing, because I had been to drama school. Now, I was supposed to re-experience the terror dogs in the refrigerator. I just saw some in there actually before this Zoom. But he came over – and I don’t know if you remember this Bill – but you went, ‘What are you doing?’ I went, ‘I’m preparing.’ You went, ‘You’re what?’ I said, ‘I’m preparing.’ You started to tickle and shake me and really you can’t do comedy if you’re gonna prepare. It’s ridiculous.

The scene in question, where Dana Barrett, sees otherworldly creatures inside her refrigerator, isn't particularly funny. It's actually legitimately creepy and one of the scarier moments in all of Ghostbusters, which has quite a few moments like that, even though the rest of the movie is a comedy. However, it seems that Bill Murray thought that Sigourney Weaver needed to take the entire movie slightly less seriously, so he got her laughing. Bill Murray laughs throughout hearing the anecdote so he seems to remember it all as well.

Sigourney Weaver says that you can't prepare for comedy, so clearly Bill Murray's lesson was one well taken.

The Together Apart video includes all three of the original Ghostbusters who are still with us, as well as Sigourney Weaver, Annie Potts, and director Ivan Reitman. It also includes Jason Reitman, who recently directed them all, to what capacity we're not entirely sure, in the upcoming Ghostbusters: Afterlife.

While so many of us were looking forward to the new Ghostbusters movie, that would have been here in less than a month, seeing them all together in this way is still incredibly entertaining and we can always go back and watch this as needed until Ghostbusters Afterlife arrives in March.

Dirk Libbey
Content Producer/Theme Park Beat

CinemaBlend’s resident theme park junkie and amateur Disney historian, Dirk began writing for CinemaBlend as a freelancer in 2015 before joining the site full-time in 2018. He has previously held positions as a Staff Writer and Games Editor, but has more recently transformed his true passion into his job as the head of the site's Theme Park section. He has previously done freelance work for various gaming and technology sites. Prior to starting his second career as a writer he worked for 12 years in sales for various companies within the consumer electronics industry. He has a degree in political science from the University of California, Davis.  Is an armchair Imagineer, Epcot Stan, Future Club 33 Member.