Dan Aykroyd Met An Angry Isaac Asimov On The Set Of Ghostbusters

As the adage goes, never meet your heroes. In most cases, this conventional wisdom is often disproven, as most artists tend to be polite in person, if not genuinely great. The adage should perhaps instead be amended to something like "never meet your heroes if the timing is off and/or circumstances are bad." With this clarification, the adage feels much more accurate. Also important to remember is that it applies to just about everybody. Even if you're a, say, major motion picture star and burgeoning comedy legend with a deep respect for notable science-fiction authors, you may not wish to meet someone you admire within that literary field if your big-budget movie happens to be currently interfering with your hero's commute.

Funny enough, that's exactly the situation Dan Aykroyd found himself in while shooting the third act of "Ghostbusters" in the fall of 1983 on location in New York City. As anyone who's seen the 1984 hit knows, the end of the film involves the titular busters of ghosts, including Aykroyd's Ray Stantz, duking it out with Gozer the Gozerian (Slavitza Jovan) at the Central Park West apartment building of Dana Barrett (Sigourney Weaver), just a few short blocks away from Columbus Circle. Director Ivan Reitman, producer Joe Medjuck, and the rest of the "Ghostbusters" crew had arranged to shoot a big portion of the climactic sequence right on the streets where it was set. 

This shut down of several major city streets unavoidably messed with traffic and generally screwed up the commute of New Yorkers who worked or lived in the area, including one Isaac Asimov. According to co-writer and co-star Harold Ramis, a chance meeting between Aykroyd and Central Park West resident Asimov near the set one day was unsurprisingly less than friendly.

Even a cursory knowledge of Dan Aykroyd and his career would explain why the actor would be so keen on meeting Isaac Asimov. Aykroyd's Spiritualist background, as well as his clear interest in science-fiction, is evidence enough that he'd be jazzed to meet the prolific author. Unfortunately, their chance meeting on the streets of NYC was less than ideal. Harold Ramis told the tale during a group commentary track for "Ghostbusters" from 1999:

"Alright, so we're taking a break one day, and Danny and I are standing at 65th [Street] and Central Park West, and Danny sees Isaac Asimov, who lives in the neighborhood. And Danny was so excited; here's one of the great science-fiction writers of our age. 'Mr. Asimov! Dan Aykroyd, we're shooting the "Ghostbusters" movie here.' [Asimov] says, 'Are you the ones responsible for this?' Dan says, 'Yeah.' He says, 'It's disgusting.' And he walks away. He couldn't get home."

To be fair to Asimov, the "Ghostbusters" production was indeed screwing up traffic over a large portion of the city for several days on end, and as someone who used to be a New Yorker, the last thing you wanna do is mess with our daily routines.

In addition to the "Ghostbusters" location shoot resulting in an awkward meeting between Dan Aykroyd and Isaac Asimov, the attitude from New Yorkers in general toward the production was highly contentious. As Harold Ramis explained, the production shut down over half the city when they shut down Columbus Circle:

"So when we were shooting this scene for three days, we stopped traffic here, which shut down Columbus Circle, which shuts down 8th, Broadway, 7th, and 59th street. Shut the East-West pass through the park. Traffic started backing up to Times Square. Then to Herald Square. Then Union Square. East side, all the way to the river. And they told us at one point we'd shut down about 60% of Manhattan."

Apparently, the mood around the set grew so uncomfortable that producer Joe Medjuck adopted his own strategy to avoid an issue. As he revealed during the same commentary track, he used the existence of a Francis Ford Coppola movie also shooting in NYC at the time as a scapegoat:

"We were all living at the Mayflower hotel, or a bunch of us. I was living at the Mayflower hotel, it was just down the street. And people would come up and say, 'What are they doing here? They're wrecking the city! Who are these people?' And I'd say, 'Francis Coppola. He's making "The Cotton Club.'"

Fortunately for everyone involved, "Ghostbusters" completed its shoot and went on to be a massive box office hit and cultural phenomenon upon its release. It stands as one of the best NYC movies ever made, which is perhaps what helped save it from the city's enmity. It may have ticked them off, but at least it made them look good.