Film and Television Roles[]
Peter MacNicol portrayed Janosz Poha in Ghostbusters II, Stingo in Sophie's Choice, Thomas Renfield in Dracula: Dead and Loving It, John Cage in Ally McBeal, Alan Birch in Chicago Hope, and Dr. Larry Fleinhardt on the CBS crime drama NUMB3RS.
Behind the Scenes[]
Peter MacNicol was sent a Ghostbusters II script but he didn't want to audition for the part at first because the role was a generic villain but he was at a point where he couldn't reject everything that was sent to him.[1] He got an idea and mixed the accents of a Czech friend and an agent at a Romanian tourist agency.[2][3][4] MacNicol auditioned with Ivan Reitman and Harold Ramis but he couldn't tell if they liked it or didn't.[5]
The blackout scene in Dana's apartmet was shot on a set. First, Peter MacNicol was filmed walking down a dimly lit walkway. As he walked, MacNicol moved his head side to side. To create the look of real light being illuminated, another pass was filmed. In it, Michael Chapman held a 2K at MacNicol's height then walked down the hall, panning the light from side to side. After a few takes done fast and slow, the scenes were edited together and both Chapman and the light were matted out. Pat Meyers helped defined the light beams by placing shards and particulate matter so it looked like real beams. Meyers lined up the beams so they tracked from MacNicol's eyebrows to the puddles of light on the walls.[6]
For the kidnapping of Oscar scene, MacNicol was dressed in drag and photographed in front of a bluescreen at ILM. The arm stretch was achieved through a piece of tubing covered with costume fabric and rigged to slide down a pole. For the wider shots, a miniature rod puppet and buggy were photographed in front of a bluescreen and manipulated by character performers Bob Cooper and David Allen.[7]
Trivia[]
- The creators of Ghostbusters: The Video Game wanted to use Janosz Poha but abandoned the idea after they could not get Peter MacNicol to reprise the role.[8]
References[]
- ↑ Warren, Bill (1989). "ha-ha-Horror Star" Fangoria #150, page 77-78. Fangoria Publishing, Atlanta, USA. Peter MacNicol says: "I was sent the script, but I didn't even want to audition for it, because it was one more generic villain that could literally have been played by anyone from George Arliss to Robert Culp. It was so broadly, pallidly drawn that there was not the slightest bit of interest in it for me. But I had just come back out [to California]; I was alone in Granada Hills-my wife was back east. I was sent here like an army ant, foraging for food. I couldn't just reject everything that was sent my way."
- ↑ Warren, Bill (1989). "ha-ha-Horror Star" Fangoria #150, page 78. Fangoria Publishing, Atlanta, USA. Peter MacNicol says: "I had known this man at the Romanian tourist authority, because I had always wanted to go to Transylvania. So I would go in there and talk to this man; I remember his accent and worked it up, adding just a dash more paprika."
- ↑ Bernard, Jami (1989). "Who? Me a Villain?" Starlog #148, page 31. Starlog Group, Inc, USA. Line reads: "He swears the language is not a direct copy of an existing one, but he did spend time with a Czech friend and loafed near a Rumanian tourist board on Manhattan's Lower East Side."
- ↑ Bernard, Jami (1989). "Who? Me a Villain?" Starlog #148, page 31. Starlog Group, Inc, USA. Peter MacNicol says: "What I did was have a marriage of the most abrasive elements of both these languages. It's a language no country would embrace."
- ↑ Warren, Bill (1989). "ha-ha-Horror Star" Fangoria #150, page 78. Fangoria Publishing, Atlanta, USA. Peter MacNicol says: "I met Ivan Reitman and Harold Ramis, and asked if anything would go. They said, 'Why? What do you have in mind?' and I said, 'Just let me do it.' So I did this scene, as this guy. And there was a kind of pall over the room when I finished. I felt that in trying to read their faces, the reactions would stretch from 'Let's give him a callback' to 'Call security immediately.' Happily for me, it was the former reaction that won out."
- ↑ Eisenberg, Adam (November 1989). Ghostbusters Revisited, Cinefex magazine #40, page 10. Cinefex, USA. Mark Vargo says: "First we shot the scene with Peter MacNicol walking down the dimly lit hallway. As he did so, he moved his head from side to side. Then to create the look of real light illuminating patches on the walls, we turned off all the lights on the set and did another pass. Michael Chapman held a 2K at roughly MacNicol's head height and walked down the darkened hallway, panning the light from one side to the other. We did a couple of takes like that--fast and slow--and then we did a couple more where we held the light on the right side of the wall and walked along and then did the same on the left side, just in case we had to pick up little pieces. With the lights turned out, you could not see Michael Chapman, and any evidence of the 2K light itself we just garbage-matted out later. All we were interested in were the puddles of light on the wall. Lining up the patches was achieved by editorially sliding the selected light passes to roughly correspond with Janosz' action. This aspect of the shot was less difficult than one might imagine because interactive light elements were next turned over to the animation department where the actual beams could be created. "Pat Myers on the motion control animation camera did a tremendous job defining the beams. He put in shards and a little bit of particulate matter so that they looked like real beams, and he lined the beams up so they tracked from MacNicol's eyebrows to the puddles of light on the walls."
- ↑ Eisenberg, Adam (November 1989). Ghostbusters Revisited, Cinefex magazine #40, page 26 footnote. Cinefex, USA. Line reads: "For identifiably close shots, Peter MacNicol was dressed in drag and photographed in front of a bluescreen. The arm stretch was a simple illusion employing a piece of tubing covered with costume fabric and rigged to slide down a pole. For wider shots, a miniature rod puppet and buggy were similarly photographed against blue. Character performers Bob Cooper and David Allen choreograph one of the miniature shots."
- ↑ Greene, James, Jr., (2022). A Convenient Parallel Dimension: How Ghostbusters Slimed Us Forever, p. 176. Lyons Press, Essex, CT USA, ISBN 9781493048243. John Zuur Platten says: "We wanted to use Janosz from Ghostbusters II, but we knew we wouldn't be able to get Peter MacNicol."