Jahi Di’Allo Winston Talks We Have A Ghost, Father-Son Bonds, and Working With David Harbour and Anthony Mackie
The director of Freaky and Happy Death Day delivers a modern ghost story in Netflix’s We Have A Ghost as a family finds out their new home is haunted by a ghost named Ernest. Footage of him turns them all into overnight social media sensations, but they become the target of the CIA when they try to uncover Ernest’s mysterious past. Kristen Maldonado of Pop Culture Planet spoke with Jahi Di’Allo Winston about the film, the father-son bond it explores, and working alongside David Harbour and Anthony Mackie.
Winston makes his return to Netflix five years after his streamer debut in Everything Sucks! “The movie is really fun and it also is similar to Everything Sucks! It's centered on a young kid who's just trying to figure himself out and come up in the world,” he said. “I had a really great time and Chris Landon, our director, was so awesome with everything. I'm so grateful to him for allowing me to be a part of it.”
He was really inspired working with heavy hitters like Harbour, Mackie, and Jennifer Coolidge in the supernatural flick. “I got to work with David and Anthony really heavily in equal time so it was interesting to see that dichotomy and the difference between the two of them. Anthony comes on set and he's the life of the party. He's gregarious. He's awesome. David is really studious and really serious about his work. That was equally as motivating and inspiring,” he shared. “Jennifer Coolidge is Jennifer Coolidge. She's the coolest and just so naturally sweet and hilarious. I had a great time working with all three of them and Erica [Ash], Niles [Fitch], the entire cast. We all got along really great.”
While Harbour’s ghostly character Ernest doesn’t talk in the film, he still brought a lot to the role. “We were fortunate to have David there the whole time. There were times where he had to step out and I would kind of have to act with no one, with the air, and just kind of use him as an eye line or a source of reference for special effects purposes, but for the most part he was there the whole time. So I didn't find myself having to pretend or overly do anything like internally and he was giving me so much to go off of,” said Winston. “He's such a great actor and I love that he didn't commit any less because he wasn't talking heavily throughout the movie. He was just as committed and that inspired me to be equally as committed too.”
Winston called the car chase sequence one of the most challenging to film. “It took us a really long time to get that and there were times where we felt like we were shooting the same thing over and over again,” he said. “We were shooting in the hot Louisiana sun. By the end of the day we were all just drained and sweaty after being in a hot car all day.”
A viral ghost might be the focus of We Have A Ghost, but the heart of the film is all about family. “It was really important to Chris Landon for those themes to be really omnipresent throughout the film as well. Yes, the movie is about Ernest and his journey and the world and how they respond to him, but at the core it's really about the the family dynamics and the friendship between Ernest and Kevin,” said Winston. “We had rehearsal time where we would just talk through the characters and talk about their relationships to one another. Anthony was really great about the father-son dynamic. He had a lot of great input and I did as well. It was really important for all of us for those themes to be equally as present as anything else.”
While Winston played opposite a ghost in We Have A Ghost, he wouldn’t want to meet one in real life. “I have never had a ghost experience that I can recall and I hope I don't have one anytime soon. I'm fight or flight and I'm flight. I have no interest in fighting. I will lose. You can have it. Have the house, ghost. Please take it. I don't want no smoke with a ghost,” he joked. “Flight all day. There’d be a Jahi-sized hole in the wall.”
We Have A Ghost is streaming on Netflix.
