Finn Wolfhard and McKenna Grace didn't know they were auditioning for Ghostbusters

Given the nature of leaks these days, it’s understandable that even stars’ auditions might have to be kept under a veil of secrecy. That’s what happened with Ghostbusters: Afterlife. Stars Finn Wolfhard (Stranger Things) and McKenna Grace (I, Tonya) said they had no idea what they were auditioning for until after they landed the gig, though Wolfhard concedes, “I knew that it was a big movie.”

Grace agrees, telling The A.V. Club in the video interview above that it’s not all that unusual a process for her. “I’ve had that happen a lot where I go out for things and I don’t know what it is whatsoever,” she says. “They’ll give me either an insert from the script or something from a film that’s already out. I remember I had to audition with a scene from Moonrise Kingdom one time.”

Grace, who plays Egon Spengler’s lookalike granddaughter Phoebe in the movie, was so completely transformed into a child-version of Harold Ramis for the film that even her own grandmother didn’t recognize her.

“She watched the trailer and she called my mom and was like, ‘I just saw the Ghostbusters trailer,’” Grace says. “We were like, ‘Yeah? What did you think?’ She said, ‘I liked it, but I didn’t see McKenna.’ One of the first shots of the trailer is me looking out the window, so I was like, “Well, watch it again.’”

She also told us that one of her “favorite and least favorite” moments from making the film came when she was hanging out on set. “I was waiting outside of crafty, I was standing there… on the sidewalk. They were like, ‘Can somebody just move this little boy out of the way?’,” saying she then turned and ran.

Ghostbusters: Afterlife hits theaters this Friday, November 19. You can read our review of the movie, which we called “a dispiriting nostalgia exercise,” right here. You can also check out our interview with Wolfhard and Grace’s co-stars Carrie Coon and Paul Rudd right here, and you should, because they’re great.