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Slavitza Jovan (born December 28, 1954) is a Yugoslav-born American actress and former fashion model, best known to Ghostbusters fans as the physical performer of the destructor god Gozer in the original 1984 film.1 A model first and an actress second, she brought a cold, statuesque presence to one of the most recognizable screen villains of the 1980s, even though her own voice was not heard: Gozer's spoken lines were dubbed in post-production by another actress.2
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Jovan was born in Yugoslavia in 1954 and is of Serbian background. She began modeling and acting at a young age in her home country before relocating to the United States, settling in Los Angeles to continue her career. Her path into film ran through the fashion world rather than formal stage or screen training, an origin that directly shaped how she landed her signature role.1
Jovan worked primarily as a model and built a relatively small but memorable on-screen filmography across film and television. She appeared in Brian De Palma's thriller Body Double (1984), the same year as Ghostbusters, and turned up in the music-industry comedy Tapeheads (1988). On television she had an early credit in the drama series Skag (1980) and later guest appearances on shows of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Decades after her breakout, she appeared in the William Malone horror remake House on Haunted Hill (1999) and in Terrence Malick's Knight of Cups (2015), which stands as one of her last credited screen roles.1
She has never been a high-volume working actress, and in the years since she has largely stepped away from the screen and kept a private profile. No death has been reported; the biographical detail beyond her filmography is sparse because she has not courted publicity.
By her own account, Jovan got the part of Gozer almost by accident. She came in for an interview alongside her modeling agent and was cast on the strength of her look and bearing rather than a traditional acting audition. In developing the character she played Gozer as a timeless, imperious figure, describing the approach as an "almost arrogant Roman empress" who regarded ordinary humans as beneath her. Without naturalistic dialogue to lean on, she built the performance from her imagination and from on-set direction, leaning into stillness and attitude rather than conventional acting beats.
The shoot was physically grueling and ran roughly three weeks for her. Jovan's days typically began around 4 a.m. with a long, uncomfortable stint in hair and makeup; the appliances were sticky and slow to apply. She then wore a tight bodysuit on the hot Temple of Gozer set, which was built at the Entertainment Effects Group facility in Los Angeles, and the costume had to be sewn shut up the back each time she suited up. The character's striking red eyes came from contact lenses she could only tolerate for about twenty minutes at a stretch, and a doctor was kept on set to monitor her, with mandatory 45-minute breaks worked into the schedule. She performed some of her own physical action, but the elaborate backward flip associated with Gozer was completed by a stunt double and finished in post-production.2 Cast and crew remembered her as shy and reserved on set, and crew members would sometimes tease her as they passed, jokingly calling her "a dangerous woman."
One element of the role was not hers: Gozer's voice. Jovan's lines were re-dubbed in post by actress Paddi Edwards, whose distinctive delivery became the voice audiences actually hear from the rooftop deity.2 As a result, Jovan is the face and body of Gozer while Edwards is the voice, a split that is often noted in discussions of the film's casting.
Jovan endures in Ghostbusters fandom almost entirely through that single, indelible role, and Gozer remains a popular subject for replica costumes and collectibles among builders and collectors on GBFans.com. A fan-favorite easter egg ties her name back into the wider canon: on page 18 of Ghostbusters Volume 2, Issue #1, one of the signatures on Peter Venkman's psychology doctorate reads "Slavitza Jovan," a nod from the comic's creators to the actress behind Gozer.3
Some content on this page was researched using the Ghostbusters Wiki on Fandom.
"Slavitza Jovan," IMDb, accessed 2026-06-13, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0431226/bio/ (birth date December 28, 1954; Yugoslav/Serbian background; filmography including Skag (1980), Body Double (1984), Tapeheads (1988), House on Haunted Hill (1999), and Knight of Cups (2015)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3
Don Shay (ed.) (1985). Making Ghostbusters. New York Zoetrope, New York. ISBN 0-918432-68-5. On the dub (p. 183), director Ivan Reitman: "We tried for a long time to use the actress' [Slavitza Jovan] real voice; but because of her accent, I was afraid it might come off as being funny," so Gozer was voiced by Paddi Edwards. The book also documents that Gozer's double flip was "executed by a stuntwoman and shot during postproduction at Entertainment Effects Group." Via Spook Central. ↩ ↩2 ↩3
Ghostbusters Volume 2 #1 (IDW Publishing, 2013), p. 18. One of the signatures on Peter Venkman's Doctorate of Psychology reads "Slavitza Jovan." ↩