Ernie Hudson expressed his dissatisfaction about Winston feeling like an afterthought in an episode of “The Howard Stern Show,” stating that all the last-minute changes to his character in the “Ghostbusters” script “felt deliberate.” The actor said of his experience:
“It wasn’t an easy road. It was probably the most difficult movie I ever did just from the psychological perspective. […] And I’m still not trying to take it personally. Anything bad, if you’re African-American in this country, anything bad happens to you, you can always blame it on because I’m Black. You don’t want to go there. That’s the last thing I want to do. I got nothing bad to say about anybody but it was hard. It took me 10 years to get past that and enjoy the movie and just embrace the movie. ‘Ghostbusters’ was really hard to make peace with it.”
Hudson added that he felit like it was the studio rather than the cast that was primarily responsible for kicking him out of the film’s plot and promotional material. Adding insult to injury, Hudson explained that the casting didn’t significantly help boost his career like he had hoped and like the studio promised him. Luckily, years of warm fan response helped him overcome his bitter feelings. Unlike the poster, the fans knew Winston was an integral part of “Ghostbusters” and “identified” with the character, giving both him and Hudson the love and respect they always deserved.