Academy Award-winning actress Octavia Spencer has endeared herself to audiences and filmmakers with her engaging quirky personality. Turns out Spencer is unabashed about her eccentricities off the set as well.
The Hidden Figures star told Ellen Degeneres that her Toluca Lake home, located in an upscale neighborhood in north Los Angeles, is haunted. Spencer bought the Spanish-style home in 2013, but it was built in 1927 and stretches to 1,714 square feet.
“I grew up watching westerns, and I bought this house, and it was owned by a guy who did westerns, so I must have been a fan of his,” Spencer, 51, told DeGeneres, 63, who also attested to her belief in ghosts herself.
This is not the kind of ghost that terrorizes home inhabitants like in the classic horror films Poltergeist or The Amityville Horror. Spencer claims the ghost in her home is mostly benign – and even looks out for her.
“My ghost can haunt me, but he doesn’t haunt me,” Spencer told Degeneres. “We have boundaries.”
“I love him because he kind of sorts out the bad people that shouldn’t be there. He runs them out,” said Spencer.
“If they stay at my place, they don’t wanna come back. And that’s how I know that they don’t belong here,” she continued. “If you’re a person that belongs there, everybody is like, ‘Oh, your place is so welcoming. It’s so great.’ And that’s how I feel about it.”
Degeneres asked if there had been any scary experiences while she’s been living there.
“When I leave for a long time he’s a little shady,” Spencer joked.
“The doors close, the lights go off when I turn them on,” she continued. “The only problem … I love my ghost — I just don’t want you bringing your ghost to my house.
“I don’t want anybody’s ghost thinking they can be friends with my ghost.”
Flip the page to listen to Spencer’s interview with Degeneres in its entirety.
