While the stars of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire were free to talk about the latest chapter in the Ghostbusters franchise before its March release, core cast member Emily Alyn Lind remained stuck — like her character in the film — in sort of a netherworld until the film hit theaters.
There’s a good reason, however, why the production didn’t want Lind to discuss her pivotal role of Melody before the release of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire. After all, Melody is a friendly ghost — or at least a friendly ghost facing a complicated decision — which is a completely new concept for a 40-year-old franchise loaded with bad spirits.
The major difference between Melody and iconic Ghostbusters characters like Slimer and Library Ghost lies in the emotional connection the teen ghost shares with 15-year-old Phoebe Spengler (Mckenna Grace). As a Ghostbuster, Phoebe is supposed to be lassoing ghosts with her Proton Pack and securing them in a Ghost Trap, not making friends with them.
“She’s a ghost that’s a literal person in a weird way — and it gets even deeper,” Lind, 21, told me in a Zoom conversation this week. “I was really interested to see what people were going to think about it. It was really nerve-wracking because I was thinking, ‘F—k, I’m against Slimer! What are people going to think?’”
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Unlocking The Mystery Of Melody
Set three years after the events of Ghostbusters: Afterlife, the new chapter in the Ghostbusters franchise finds Phoebe Spengler (Mckenna Grace) and her family relocating from Summerville, Oklahoma, to the original Ghostbusters headquarters in New York City.
Like the original Ghostbusters team, a path of destruction is often left in the wake of the Spenglers’ and Gary Grooberson’s (Paul Rudd) paranormal pursuits, leading NYC Mayor Walter Peck (William Atherton from the original Ghostbusters) to clamp down on the team. One of Peck’s conditions for keeping the Ghostbusters on life support is removing Phoebe from the Ghostbusters team because at 15 years old, she’s too big of a liability.
Left dejected by the move, Phoebe fatefully wanders to a desolate park and encounters Melody (Emily Alyn Lind), a melancholy spirit who reveals she died tragically in a fire. What Phoebe doesn’t realize is that Melody doesn’t completely have control over her own fate and actions, which could lead to catastrophic consequences.
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Introducing a unique ghost character like Melody was an idea that writer-director Gil Kenan, writer-producer Jason Reitman and casting head John Papsidera tried to keep a mystery during the production. The character was such a secret that the filmmakers even tried to withhold the information from Lind while she was reading for the pivotal role.
“I read for it with Gil and John and Jason, and I thought Melody was such a fun, witty character,” Lind recalled, whose credits include Max’s Gossip Girl reboot and the Netflix
As she was reading, however, Lind suspected that there was something different about Melody.
“It was really funny, because in the sides there’s literally a part where the character is 100 years old — and it’s true,” Lind said. “But when I read the script later — since I first read for it before doing the project — I was thinking it would be just a weird plot twist with my character or maybe not with my character.”
Effectively, Lind added, Kenan did his best at underplaying the importance of Melody to Lind — until he couldn’t.
“He was really good at not telling me that I was a ghost. They didn’t want anyone to know,” Lind said. “I don’t think they even wanted me to read it before I signed onto it, to be honest. I was like, ‘I really need to read it.’ It was a big surprise for sure.”
Lind Didn’t Film Her Role Melody As You Would Suspect
While Emily Alyn Lind appears in an altered state in Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire as Melody, the actor said she filmed her scenes with Mckenna Grace as if they were both human characters.
And while Lind wasn’t transformed into a spirit via the visual effects team during postproduction, she luckily was allowed to wear the costume you see in the film and didn’t have to wear a motion-capture outfit decorated with bulbs and other high-tech instruments.
“I was worried at first,” Lind said. “I’ve seen the videos of superhero movie stuff and I’ve wondered, ‘How do you act? How do you have that emotional connection with a green screen?’”
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Director Gil Kenan did, however, have Lind participate in some of the film’s practical special effects, as she was strapped into a harness and raised as high as 40 feet in the air for Melody’s floating scenes.
Apart from that, Lind noted, not being privy to the film’s movie magic was actually a move by design.
“A lot of it had to do with the fact that Gil wanted me separated from that idea … He didn’t want me to see myself as a ghost until I literally had to because of ADR,” Lind said of the dialogue looping process. “He didn’t want me to see myself as a ghost when I was filming. He didn’t want me to see the things like when I was walking or I was floating.”
The idea behind that process, Lind noted, was to not have her become conscious of how a ghost would move.
“He wanted her to be human and have a heart and not feel like [a ghost that goes] ‘Boo!’” Lind explained. “She’s like a sarcastic street rat that’s also a ghost. She’s a ghost and ‘Here’s everything else.’ … I tried to be blissfully unaware [of the process].”
Ultimately, not being a part of the visual effects process made Lind feel like an actual moviegoer who could get lost in the wonder of it all as she was watching Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire on the big screen.
“I saw it for the first time at the premiere and I was like, ‘Oh, my God!’ How did they do that?” Lind enthused. “It was like, ‘It’s so cool and I don’t want to know because it’s awesome.”
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is playing in theaters.
