A ghostbuster and a ghost become best friends. What could go wrong?
One of the relationships at the heart of Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire was the complicated friendship between Phoebe (McKenna Grace) and Melody (Emily Alyn Lind). The pair — a ghostbuster and a ghost — have an interesting dynamic baked in, which is doubly true since Phoebe has so much trouble connecting with people. On the one hand, she gets something out of the relationship with Melody that she can’t from others — Melody has knowledge of the ghost world, meaning that she has knowledge and understanding that Phoebe lacks. that’s pretty rare, considering Phoebe is so often the only one in the room who understands what’s going on.
Of course, any close relationship featuring teen characters immediately makes fans wonder whether sparks will fly, and this one is no different. While promoting the digital release of Frozen Empire, Grace told ComicBook that she didn’t see any overt romantic aspects to the relationship, but that she was happy to let the audience fill in the blanks with whatever felt true to them.
“I think that Phoebe in general has a massive fascination with the afterlife, and with what it would be like to be a ghost, so I think that’s another added layer — because what humans is Phoebe really friends with?” Grace told ComicBook. “She has Podcast, but that’s because he kind of forced her to be his friend. It’s such a funny dynamic, those two, I love it. They’re an unlikely pair. But what humans does Phoebe really connect with? She kind of just views everybody like, ‘You guys are not as smart as me. I can’t converse with you, you just don’t get it.’ Phoebe’s her own person.”
“With Phoebe and Melody, I think the entire dynamic is set up and shaded in the light that Phoebe is kind of at her most vulnerable,” Grace added. “Obviously, there is a bit of a twist in that relationship and there is a bit of Phoebe feeling taken advantage of by that friendship. I think that there is, at the core of it, a friendship, relationship, that Phoebe has never experienced before. She kind of met Melody at a time where she was completely isolated. She felt like her family had turned on her, she was no longer allowed to be a Ghostbuster, she didn’t really have anything. So that was somebody that she felt like saw her — that got her as a person. And she was also very fascinated with the ghost element of it all, so I think it was just a close relationship that Phoebe had never had before, and she felt seen in a moment of vulnerability. So to me, I think that whatever people want to relate to in their relationship, I’m excited and happy that people can see themselves in the characters, but for me, it was just a friendship that Phoebe had never experienced before, and so she was just so enthralled by Melody and fascinated.”
In Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, the Spengler family returns to where it all started – the iconic New York City firehouse – to team up with the original Ghostbusters, who’ve developed a top-secret research lab to take busting ghosts to the next level. But when the discovery of an ancient artifact unleashes an evil force, Ghostbusters new and old must join forces to protect their home and save the world from a second Ice Age.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire stars Paul Rudd, Carrie Coon, Finn Wolfhard, Mckenna Grace, Logan Kim, Kumail Nanjiani, Patton Oswalt, Celeste O’Connor, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Bill Murray, Annie Potts, James Acaster, and Emily Alyn Lind.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire is now available to rent or own on Digital.
