Fred Armisen put marble tombstones around his house to make ghosts feel welcome

Fred Armisen likes ghosts. Anyone who has watched the actor’s performances in horror-inflected TV shows like Los Espookys and What We Do in the Shadows probably could have guessed that, but it’s not just about what’s on screen. Armisen made efforts to make ghosts feel welcome in his real life as well.

The revelation came as part of Armisen’s appearance on the podcast Woo Woo With Rachel Dratch. As the title suggests, the show (hosted by Rachel Dratch and Irene Bremis) centers around real-life stories about encounters with “the unexplained, the eerie and other-worldly.” So after trading stories with Dratch about their respective runs on Saturday Night Live (they even overlapped for a few years), Armisen said that someone who helped him move into his Los Angeles home told him there were ghosts present. Rather than request an exorcism, he decided to be friendly.

“If there is a presence in my house, who am I to be like, ‘You’re not allowed here?'” Armisen said. “Like, why do I need that much space if it means that much to them? I thought, ‘Great, knock yourself out. You wanna hang out here? I get it. This is a really nice house. Don’t worry about it. I’m not home all the time anyway.'”

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But Armisen didn’t stop at just a change in attitude. For him, the real “jumping-off point between believing and disbelieving” came when he decided to do some redecoration for their benefit.

“I bought some little tombstones from Hollywood Forever,” Armisen said, referring to the famous L.A. cemetery. “Little mini ones from leftover marble. I labeled them ‘ghost number one,’ ‘ghost number two,’ ‘ghost number three,’ and ‘ghost number four.’ I did four of them, and I just set them up outside. It was like, ‘By the way, you can use these…you’re welcome to these tombstones.'”

Both Dratch and Bremis found the gesture sweet. But the real question is, has Armisen gotten any feedback from these ghosts?

“I don’t know what that feeling would feel like,” Armisen said. “But I will say, in my mind as I was talking to them I did picture them going, ‘Oh great!’ I don’t know what that feeling is, it’s in my head, but in that moment it felt very real to me.”

Listen to the full conversation above.