Early life and education
Dippold grew up in Freehold Township, New Jersey. As a child she wrote dark and elaborate fictional crime and disaster stories in a newspaper she produced for herself, an early sign of the comic sensibility that would later define her work. She went on to study at Rutgers University, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in journalism.2 It was at Rutgers that she discovered an improvisational comedy troupe, an experience that redirected her ambitions away from journalism and toward comedy and performance.
Career
After graduating, Dippold built her professional foundation in improv and sketch comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in New York City. During this period she appeared as a sketch regular on Late Night with Conan O'Brien and was a cast member on MTV's hidden-camera prank series Boiling Points.1
Her television writing career began in 2006, when she joined the writing staff of the sketch series MADtv, where she wrote across several seasons and also served as a co-producer.1 In 2009 she moved to Parks and Recreation, contributing to the show's writing staff for several seasons and rising to co-producer.1
Dippold's feature breakthrough was The Heat (2013), a female buddy-cop comedy starring Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy and directed by Paul Feig. The script established her partnership with Feig and her facility for action-comedy built around women leads. In 2012, Variety named her one of its "10 Screenwriters to Watch," and Interview magazine listed her among "13 People to Look Out For in 2013."1 She also did uncredited revision work on Feig's spy comedy Spy (2015).1
After Ghostbusters she wrote Snatched (2017), a kidnapping comedy starring Amy Schumer and Goldie Hawn, and the Disney supernatural family comedy Haunted Mansion (2023), based on the Disney theme-park attraction.1 She has continued to develop television, including the series Widow's Bay.
Across her film work, Dippold has also taken small on-screen acting roles, a habit that carried directly into her Ghostbusters cameo.
Ghostbusters
Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016)
Dippold co-wrote the screenplay for Ghostbusters: Answer the Call with director Paul Feig, reuniting the pair after The Heat. The film follows a new team of paranormal investigators, Erin Gilbert, Abby Yates, Jillian Holtzmann, and Patty Tolan, as they confront a supernatural threat in New York City.
Several details in the film came directly from Dippold's own life. Holtzmann's line "Do you see the eyes?" originated from one of Dippold's night terrors: she once sat up in bed staring at a closet and asked her partner, "Do you see the eyes?" The line was written into the script for the character.3
Dippold also appears on screen in the film, playing the Rental Agent who shows Erin and Abby a prospective office space, a brief cameo by one of the picture's own writers. During production she was stationed behind the monitors for the scene in which a possessed Kevin accosts police officers. Unaware of the planned stunt, she screamed "Oh my God!", thinking something had gone wrong, when Chris Hemsworth's character lifted a stuntman into the air.
Early in her work on the project, Dan Aykroyd, co-creator of the original franchise, sent Dippold a copy of his father's book "A History of Ghosts" with a personal note offering his help if she needed it and encouraging her to have fun with the material first and foremost.4
Tie-in writing
The film's companion book, "Ghosts from Our Past: Both Literally and Figuratively: The Study of the Paranormal" (Three Rivers Press), was written by Andrew Shaffer and presented in-universe as the work authored by Erin Gilbert and Abby Yates. Dippold served as a consultant on the project and is thanked in the book's acknowledgments.5 She is also referenced in the introduction of IDW Publishing's "Ghostbusters 101: Everyone Answers the Call" collected edition.
Personal life
Dippold is in a long-term relationship with former film studio executive Drew Crevello.1
References
Some content on this page was researched using the Ghostbusters Wiki on Fandom.
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"Katie Dippold," Wikipedia, accessed 2026-06-13, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katie_Dippold.
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Rutgers Magazine, "Who You Gonna Call?" (2014), https://ucmweb.rutgers.edu/magazine/1419archive/the-arts/who-you-gonna-call.html. Paul Feig: "I love Katie. Our sensibilities and our comedic tastes completely dovetail with each other. So when this one came up, there was no other name I thought of."
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Ghostbusters: Answer the Call Extended Edition Blu-ray (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2016). Audio commentary with Paul Feig and Katie Dippold, at approximately 00:41:19.
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Greene, James, Jr. (2022). A Convenient Parallel Dimension: How Ghostbusters Slimed Us Forever. Lyons Press, Essex CT USA. ISBN 9781493048243. "As the writing was getting under way, Aykroyd gifted Dippold a copy of his father's book A History of Ghosts with a [note saying] 'I'm here if you need any help at all, but most importantly, just have fun.'"
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Shaffer, Andrew (writing as Erin Gilbert and Abby L. Yates) (2016). Ghosts from Our Past: Both Literally and Figuratively: The Study of the Paranormal. Three Rivers Press. ISBN 9781101906002. Dippold is thanked in the acknowledgments (p. 215).
