Harold Ramis Gets Down to Funny Business

Sony Pictures The director of Year One, Harold Ramis, talks to The Daily Beast’s Kim Masters about Bill Murray, Michael Cera, Judd Apatow, Will Ferrell, and the much-anticipated Ghostbusters sequel.

In a recent interview about their upcoming movie Year One, Michael Cera and Jack Black were asked whether they wanted to suit up for Ghostbusters 3. Cera said no way. "Ghostbusters is too important for me to try and be one," he explained. "I would feel like a phony. I would feel like an impostor."

Indeed. The only Year One player with an assured role in a Ghostbusters sequel, should it happen, is director Harold Ramis, who co-wrote the 1984 original and starred as the sexy geek, Dr. Egon Spengler. That role is just part of a career in comedies that were iconic to more than one generation. Ramis was a writer on Animal House, Meatballs and Stripes; he wrote and directed Caddyshack and Groundhog Day. He has directed episodes of The Office and has even entered the Judd Apatow orbit (he had cameos in Knocked Up and Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story, and Apatow is a producer on Year One). Kim Masters talked to Ramis about Bill Murray, Judd Apatow, Michael Cera, and the chances for a Ghostbusters reunion.

“Bill’s characters could get laid, you know? These characters now are hopeless and helpless.”

Why are cavemen funny?

This is not a caveman movie. There’s not a single cave in the whole picture. I’m a serious guy. A scholar. And our movie is about Paleolithic hunter-gatherers. This is not Ringo Starr in a loincloth.

If it’s not a caveman movie, what is it?

It’s about awakening to the existential dilemma, which is—of course—comedy. It tracks through Genesis. It’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern go to Sodom... I kind of compressed the timeline of Genesis, though.

I’ve heard that you’ve described the comedies of the era when you were working with Ivan Reitman as “institutional” comedies—like Stripes took on the military and Animal House took on universities. Is that how you see it?

Yes. Caddyshack, the one I directed, for me was about the exclusivity of country clubs and social-class conflict.

Now we seem to have Judd Apatow movies taking on the challenges of growing up. Does that sound right to you?

Apatow—his young characters are not struggling against institutions. They’re struggling against their personal issues, maturity issues. It’s partly a generational thing. Every generation has to go through a period of rebellion and then eventually, you join in. You know, country clubs look pretty bad until you join. But to an extent, the cultural war is over. The youth actually won. We’re now a Levi's-wearing nation. We all listen to pop music. Political activism has really cooled, partly due to the end of [the draft]... The rules have all relaxed. Now we have kind of a confused, lazy slacker generation. They’re told they’re not going to do as well as their parents. Maybe they’re a little more lost in a certain way but they know how to enjoy themselves. Or medicate themselves.