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Neil Casey (born July 28, 1981) is an American actor, comedy writer, and improviser.1 He is best known on television as a sketch writer for Saturday Night Live and Inside Amy Schumer, earning Primetime Emmy nominations for both, and as an on-screen comic actor in series such as Other Space, Making History, and Big Mouth.1 In the Ghostbusters franchise he played Rowan North, the villain of Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016).2
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Casey was born in Wilmington, Delaware. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in English, with a concentration in drama, from the University of Delaware, then moved into comedy and acting in New York.1 He began performing in theatre around 2001 and became associated with the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre, where he has written, directed, performed, and taught since 2007.1
Casey joined the writing staff of Saturday Night Live for its 38th season in 2012. For that work he received a Primetime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series at the 65th Primetime Emmy Awards in 2013. He returned to write for SNL again in a later season, writing on roughly 19 episodes of the show in total.1
The following year he wrote for Comedy Central's Inside Amy Schumer (2014), which brought a second Emmy nomination for Outstanding Writing for a Variety Series at the 66th Primetime Emmy Awards. He also contributed material to Kroll Show (2015) and later wrote for Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Return and The President Show.1
As an actor, Casey was a series regular as Kent Woolworth on the science fiction comedy Other Space (2015), created by Paul Feig for Yahoo! Screen. He went on to co-star opposite Adam Pally in the time-travel sitcom Making History (2017), playing Sam Adams. He has made guest appearances across a wide range of comedies, including Broad City, Veep, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Silicon Valley, Santa Clarita Diet, and Avenue 5.13
Casey is also a prolific voice actor. He has voiced characters across many episodes of the animated series Big Mouth (2017 onward), and lent his voice to Star Trek: Lower Decks, Animals, and Clone High.1
In Paul Feig's Ghostbusters: Answer the Call, Casey played Rowan North, the film's primary antagonist. Rowan is a physicist with advanced degrees who works as a basement custodian at the Mercado Hotel in Manhattan, which he has identified as the intersection point of New York City's ley lines and therefore the ideal place to install his Barrier Compromising Master Machine. His goal is to thin the barrier between the living world and the ghost dimension and unleash an army of ghosts on the city.2
Screenwriter Katie Dippold described Rowan as "a very smart genius type" who meets the Ghostbusters and does not want to do good, while director Paul Feig characterized him as "the ultimate loner, a regular New Yorker."4 Casey's casting as the villain was first reported on July 7, 2015.5 He had previously worked with Feig on Other Space (2015), which also featured several other performers from the 2016 film, including Eugene Cordero, Bess Rous, Karan Soni, and Milana Vayntrub.5 Casey's delivery of Rowan's line about the ghosts being "mostly dudes" was an ad-lib that made it into the finished film.
Some content on this page was researched using the Ghostbusters Wiki on Fandom.
"Neil Casey," Wikipedia, accessed 2026-06-13, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neil_Casey ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8
Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016), Columbia Pictures. Rowan North, basement custodian of the Mercado Hotel, builds the Barrier Compromising Master Machine at the convergence of the city's ley lines to thin the barrier between the living and the dead. ↩ ↩2
"Neil Casey," IMDb, accessed 2026-06-13, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2654481/ ↩
Peter Sciretta, "'Ghostbusters': Paul Feig Reveals Villain Details, Talks Possible Multiverse," SlashFilm (2016), accessed 2026-06-13, https://www.slashfilm.com/544030/ghostbusters-villain-multiverse/ ↩
Deadline, "'Ghostbusters' Finds Its Bad Guy: Neil Casey" (July 7, 2015), https://deadline.com/2015/07/ghostbusters-3-neil-casey-cast-villain-1201471580/ ↩ ↩2
