Where You've Seen The Cast Of Netflix's We Have A Ghost Before

Netflix has had quite the run of top-notch original movies lately, with 2022 seeing the release of "The Gray Man," Guillermo del Toro's "Pinocchio" and Rian Johnson's "Knives Out" sequel, "Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery." Not content with those run of films, however, they've continued into 2023 with the release of "We Have a Ghost," a supernatural comedy that breathes new life into the ghost buddy comedy sub-genre.

In the film, the Presley family moves into a new home that seems too good to be true. But young Kevin finds that the house is hiding a spooky secret when he records a video of a ghost in the attic. As Kevin befriends the apparition, his dad wants to profit off their discovery, and soon their new home becomes the talk of the town. But while some come out of curiosity, others have more sinister aims. In the middle of it all is Ernest, the ghost who can't seem to remember his old life, which prompts Kevin to set out with his friends to find out why he can't cross over to the other side.

A delightfully fun romp for the whole family, "We Have a Ghost" stars Jahi Di'Allo Winston, David Harbour, Anthony Mackie, Isabella Russo, and a cast of names you may not recognize at first glance. But you've probably seen them somewhere before — we're here with a primer to tell you all about them, and what else they've appeared in.

Actor David Harbour plays the titular spirit in "We Have a Ghost," a role that showcases his ability to give life (no pun intended) to offbeat characters. No doubt most audiences will recognize him from "Stranger Things," where he plays Sheriff Hopper. But while that's the show that brought Harbour to most people's attention, he's had a long and fruitful career outside of that series.

Starting out on TV, Harbour made guest appearances in several "Law & Order" shows before making the leap to the movies. He had small roles in "Kinsey," "Brokeback Mountain," and "War of the Worlds." We could rattle off a laundry list of major movies that Harbour had small roles in throughout the 2010s, including "Quantum of Solace," "End of Watch," and "The Equalizer," but it was back on TV where he started to gain the attention of audiences. He secured a recurring role in the short-lived ABC drama "Pan Am" in 2011, and then graduated to "The Newsroom," where he played TV anchor Elliot Hirsch.

In 2014, Harbour joined the main cast of a prime-time series, starring alongside Katherine Heigl and Alfre Woodard in the spy thriller "State of Affairs" as the White House Chief of Staff David Patrick. Following his breakout role as Jim Hopper, Harbour saw leading movie roles come his way: He took the starring role in the 2019 reboot "Hellboy," and played Red Guardian in Marvel's "Black Widow." In 2022's "Violent Night," he even played a deadly vigilante version of Santa Claus.

Starring in the role of Melanie Presley, Kevin's mother, is Erica Ash. Readers might know Ash best from when she was part of the cast of the Starz series "Survivor's Remorse," the four-season comedy that also featured Mike Epps ("Next Friday") and Teyonah Parris ("WandaVision"). But that was far from her only major role. She was also a cast member on "MADtv" in the late 2000s, and had a recurring role as Bridgette Hart in "Real Husbands of Hollywood" with Kevin Hart.

In 2018, Ash led the cast of the BET legal drama "In Contempt," where she played New York lawyer Gwen Sullivan. She's had success on the big screen as well, appearing in a leading role in "Scary Movie 5" in 2013, then supporting Haley Bennett and Lucas Till in the horror thriller "Kristy" a year later. She appeared again with Mike Epps in "Uncle Drew" alongside Kyrie Irving and a host of real-life basketball stars like Shaquille O'Neal, Reggie Miller, and Nate Robinson. But her career also includes a number of indie projects that may have flown under the radar, such as the 2016 drama "Jean of the Joneses" and "Violet" which featured Olivia Munn, Justin Theroux, Todd Stashwick, and Steve Agee.

"We Have a Ghost" isn't just about Kevin Presley and his family. When they find the ghost named Ernest, Kevin confides in his new school friend Joy, played by actress Isabella Russo, and the two set out to solve a past life mystery together. A relative newcomer to the screen, Russo can count "We Have a Ghost" as her first major movie role. Before it, she'd had just a short career on the small screen, getting her earliest part in a 2018 television movie titled "For Love."

Within a year, though, Russo was getting new roles elsewhere, including a two-episode stint on "Crashing," the quasi-autobiographical comedy from writer/director Pete Holmes about his life as a stand-up comic in New York City. Russo next did what most up-and-coming actors do: Find work in episodes of "Law and Order." In her case, she has the distinction of playing a character that crossed over two separate series' in the franchise, appearing in episodes of both "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" and the 2022 spin-off "Law & Order: Organized Crime."

Outside of on-screen performances, Russo has also done plenty of voicework in animation that might make her recognizable to younger audiences. She's played several roles on popular animated shows, which include her roles as Tali in four episodes of "Wolfboy and the Everything Factory," and characters in a pair of Netflix originals, "Centaurworld" and "Princess Power."

While Tig Notaro plays a CIA agent out to capture the ghost named Ernest in "We Have a Ghost," there's another, more sinister foil in the film, played by veteran character actor Tom Bower. But we have to preface our overview of Bower's career with the caveat that, due to it stretching back to the early 1970s, and with nearly 200 roles to his credit, we might not be able to help you identify exactly where you may have seen him before. But we'll do our best to give a brief rundown of some of his more prominent projects, which starts with the '70s sitcom "The Waltons."

In that iconic series, Bower showed up in more than 25 episodes as several different characters during its nine-season run. From there, Bower became a regular on TV, guesting on a number of popular hits like "Murder, She Wrote," "Miami Vice," and "Hill Street Blues," and continued making those kinds of one-off appearances for decades. This includes popping up in "NYPD Blue," and the "X-Files" in the '90s, "NCIS" and "Battlestar Galactica" in the 2000s, and "The Office" and "Criminal Minds" in the 2010s.

At the movies, Bower has also been a regular, with small roles in more films than we can count. Most recently, he played Lou in "El Camino," the "Breaking Bad" sequel film, but can also count action movies like "The Negotiator," "Clear and Present Danger," and "Aces: Iron Eagle III" among his credits.

In addition to TV host and local medium Judy Romano, the presence of Ernest attracts a host of oddballs to the Presley home, and that includes Jesus Christ himself. Ok, maybe not the real Jesus Christ, but a man pretending to be, brought to you by actor Nicholas X. Parsons. You may not know his name, or even his face, but it's likely that you've seen him around, even if it's just in the background of a densely packed scene. While he does get a pretty fun role in "We Have a Ghost," Parsons has never had a big part in a hit TV series, or even a large recurring role, and is more often than not playing unnamed background parts. Still, his filmography is dotted with some popular projects.

Starting his career in the late '90s, Parsons began with an uncredited role in "Cry Wolf" from filmmaker Jeff Wadlow (director of "Kick-Ass 2"). What followed were mostly low-budget, little-seen indie films like "In the Pines" and television movies like "Big Mike" and "Mille and the Muse." Later in his career, he had blink-and-you'll-miss-it roles in hits like "Rock of Ages" and "Pain and Gain." But while it's unlikely you've noticed Parsons in those films, you may have been able to spot him on the small screen, where he turns up in episodes of "Burn Notice," "The Inbetweeners," and "Preacher."

The cast of "We Have a Ghost" has a handful of stars, a few newcomers, and a bunch of veteran character actors. But it also has at least one face that you probably know from some of TV's biggest hits of years gone by, even if you can't place it at first. That would be Faith Ford, who plays Barbara Mangold, and if there's any actor that has audiences pointing at the screen trying to trigger a memory of where they know them from, it's her.

Though it's been some time since she appeared in a high-profile project, Ford is best known for her role in the iconic '90s workplace sitcom "Murphy Brown," where she played journalist Corky Sherwood. She played the part for the series' entire 10-season run, earning herself five Emmy nominations in the process. After "Murphy Brown" went off the air, Ford got her own show, "Hope & Faith" alongside Kelly Ripa, Ted McGinley, and Megan Fox, which ran for three years.

Those were far from her only shows, though. In the early '90s, she was a member of the cast of "The Norm Show" with Norm Macdonald, and played the title role in the short-lived 1998 sitcom "Maggie Winters." In 2018, she returned to play Corky Sherwood in a single-season revival of "Murphy Brown," her first regular role since a run on "Carpoolers" in 2007.