Ghostbusters

Each week, Stanford Under the Stars: Movie Nights at Frost brings a selection of movies featuring actors who attended Stanford or various Stanford and Northern California filming locations. Sigourney Weaver (’72) transferred to Stanford after freshman year at Sarah Lawrence College and has described this as one of the best decisions she made. Weaver majored in English and immersed herself in acting not in the drama department but through a group she and other students founded called the Palo Alto Company. Weaver didn’t intend to become an actor—she considered pursuing a Ph.D. in English or a career in journalism, but after graduation she briefly attended drama school at Yale before leaving to act professionally in off-Broadway productions. She got her big break after being cast in Alien and built an impressive career afterwards, appearing in movies such as Ghostbusters (1984) and Gorillas in the Mist (1988).

After the members of a team of scientists (Harold Ramis, Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray) lose their cushy positions at a university in New York City, they decide to become “ghostbusters” to wage a high-tech battle with the supernatural for money. They stumble upon a gateway to another dimension, a doorway that will release evil upon the city. The Ghostbusters must now save New York from complete destruction.