As an actor and a writer, Dan Aykroyd has helped create characters as varied as musicians on a mission, alien visitors, supernatural warriors and many more. But nothing, he says, is as strange as what happens in the real world.
In an exclusive chat with TV WEEK, the Ghostbusters star explains why reality is far stranger than any movie he’s ever made.
“How can a woman, for instance, fall 17,000 feet [from a plane] and live?” Dan, 72, asks TV WEEK as his exploration of strange but true events, creatures and people continues with season two of The UnBelievable.
“There are so many incredible, inexplicable and unbelievable things that have happened on this planet.”
This season, for example, Dan and his team of experts investigate the strange objects – including a bathtub – that have fallen from the sky. They also follow the man who decided to recreate the balloon adventure of the film Up, and even animals who’ve had incredible real-life adventures.
“There was a bear with the Polish army in World War II that was their mascot,” Dan says. “He ate and drank with the men and he carried a Gatling gun and ammunition!”
The show is a change of pace for the veteran performer, who has an almost unbelievable legacy of bringing Hollywood’s greatest roles to life. But, just like the stories he presents, Dan has a logical explanation, insisting he owes much of his success to the writers, directors and other actors he has worked with.
Mention Trading Places, for example, and he immediately credits the movie’s writers and the director John Landis for helping create his role.
The iconic musical/action/comedy The Blues Brothers was definitely a collaboration, as was Ghostbusters, the mega-hit film, now a decades-long franchise, that he co-wrote,
“We tried to do the best we could,” Dan says with typical modesty.
“We hit with some, we missed with others and I think it’s just that I was fortunate to work with collaborators and to do movies that people do want to watch again and again,” he says.
“You can get on some of the streamers and see some of these shows, every kind of movie you can imagine – but you don’t want to watch them twice. “[But] Trading Places, Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, these are films that people want to see again and again, so that’s why they endured.”
It was a lot of fun, he admits, but not something he wants to chase now.
“I’m just happy to get the thing made and let the crew go home to their families you know? Nobody wants to hang around once you’ve done the work at the end of the day. You want to get going,” he says. “Now, Bill Murray (Dan’s Ghostbusters co-star), he feels completely different to that.”
Dan says Bill would host a post-wrap party in his trailer with “a really good one” on Friday nights, something that helped the pair form a bond that still remains decades after the film was made.
They talk regularly, Dan says, and chat about upcoming projects.
“We have lots to talk about. He’s got a musical show I think he’s probably bringing to Australia… I believe he told me he was.”
If it happens, is there a chance Dan, himself a musician, would join him on stage Down Under?
“Possibly,” Dan teases. “Only if John Travolta picks me up in a Qantas jet!”
Related stories
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
Native ad body.
