Black Mirror actress auditions for lead role in new Ghostbusters

The upcoming Ghostbusters movie is starting to take shape, and they might have already found their lead actress.

One of the biggest news in the horror-verse last week was that a new Ghostbusters movie is coming! This film will serve as a sequel to the original one (a moment of silence for Ghostbusters 2 and Paul Feig’s reboot). The team behind this project is wasting no time and released a teaser the following day.

Jason Reitman, son of Ghostbuster’s director Ivan Reitman, is on board to direct with a script co-written by him and Gil Kenan (Poltergeist). With a 2020 release on the plans, the search for the cast has begun, and it looks like they might have already found one of their leads in a Black Mirror alum.

According to HN Entertainment, 12-year-old actress Sarah Abbott auditioned for one of the four kid roles in the story. Abbott is best known for her role in Black Mirror’s “Arkangel”, directed by Jodie Foster, where she played a younger version of the character Sara Sambrell. Don’t worry: her role in the movie will be much lighter than the one in Black Mirror.

HN Entertainment had previously shared character descriptions for two of the four kid roles: one is a 13-year-old boy described as a “conspiracy theorist” and being “really into fantasy”, and the other is a 12-year-old girl who is a “science kid” who struggles with “connecting with others on an emotional level, understanding feelings” and is not aware of “how hurtful her comments can be”. This is the character Abbott auditioned for.

In two now deleted videos (with transcriptions provided by HN Entertainment), Abbott could be seen reading for the role of the “science kid”, trying to learn how to tell jokes and be more social. SuperBroMovies’ Daniel Richtman noted that this character was listed first on the breakdown, meaning that she is the main character.

With the videos gone (for now, at least) we can only learn some bits of the character from transcriptions and people who got to watch them. A very interesting detail was brought up by ComicBook: at one point, Abbott’s character is studying a joke book, and says she’s “not a machine, I just don’t pick up on traditional social cues”, which could suggest she has autism spectrum disorder.

Of course, all this is speculation at this point, and characters can go through re-writes between auditions and the moment the cameras start rolling. That small but important detail spotted by ComicBook really stands out to me, and if that ends up being part of the character, I truly hope they manage it correctly.

Until then, and if you haven’t watched it yet, it would be a good time to check out Black Mirror’s “Arkangel” (episode two, season four. You’re welcome!), to get an idea of Abbott’s talent.

Are you excited for the new Ghostbusters? Who do you want to see cast? Let us know in the section below.