A list of characters appearing in Haunted Mansion (2023). For characters appearing in other versions, go here.
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The Living
Ben
Ben Matthias
Played by: Lakeith Stanfield
A former astrophysicist turned tour guide. He is recruited by Father Kent to use a special camera he developed to help Gabbie and Travis with their ghost situation.
- Friend to All Children: Despite his not being very good with people, Ben gets along with Travis right away, and is visibly nicer to him than he is when meeting most of the movie's other characters.
- The Lost Lenore: His wife, Alyssa, who died in a car crash sometime prior to the start of the story.
- No Social Skills: He has a hard time interacting with people and mostly tries to keep to himself. His late wife was the more outgoing of the two.
- Parental Substitute: Develops into a sort of father figure for Travis as the two bond over the course of the movie.
- Science Hero: Subverted. He was an astrophysicist and particle physicist before his current Fallen-on-Hard-Times Job, and his ability to create a "quantum lens" that can photograph ghosts is what the heroes use to try to identify their spectral opponents early on. But the lens is broken halfway through the movie, preventing him from identifying the Hatbox Ghost, it instead forces everyone, including him, to rely on more occult solutions like the reverse seance to get out of their predicament.
- They Called Me Mad!: During his time as an astrophysicist, he developed a camera lens that could see so-called “ghost-particles”. The press quickly latched onto the ghost element and he was made a laughingstock. When it comes time for him to start using it to find ghosts, however, it works.
Gabbie
Gabbie
Played by: Rosario Dawson
A doctor and Travis’ single mother. She moves with him to Gracy Manor for a fresh start, only to find that it’s not only haunted, but the ghosts can and will follow them.
- Good Parents: Deeply cares about Travis and everything she does in the movie is to save him from the hauntings.
- Mama Bear: She does all she can to keep her son safe, even if it means facing a mansion of terrifying ghosts.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: She is initially dismissive of Travis’ ghost claims their first night in the mansion, but the very second something supernatural happens, she grabs him and runs for the car.
Travis
Travis
Played by: Chase W. Dilon
Gabbie’s son. A shy, somewhat dorky boy.
- Black and Nerdy: Dresses in tweed and bow ties, tries to make sure everyone follows the rules on the playground, and gets picked on a lot as a result. He also has a number of Marvel action figures, including Black Panther.
- Disappeared Dad: Early on, it's implied that Gabbie and Travis's father went through an acrimonious breakup, and Travis later confesses to Ben that he's been secretly still speaking with his dad, who wants Travis to come live with him, but he worries that doing so would make Gabbie feel terrible. Ben assumes Travis has been making secret phone calls to his dad... but then Gabbie reveals to him that Travis's father died last year. Travis is still mourning his father, which the Hatbox Ghost has been trying to use to his advantage by taking the form of Travis's father.
Father Kent
Father Kent
Played by: Owen Wilson
An unusually laid-back priest who recruits Ben to help exorcise Gracy Manor.
- Chessmaster Sidekick: Father Kent often takes a backseat to Ben and Gabbie, but he is the one who researches and recruits new members of the ghost-busting crew, plans out how to use their skills, and lures them to the mansion so that they will be cursed if they try to leave instead of help.
- Con Man: He isn’t a real priest. He’s just a costume shop employee who uses a priest costume to perform fake exorcisms for money.
- Becoming the Mask: Becomes an ordained minister (though not a priest) at the end of the movie.
- Hypocrite: He accuses Harriet of being a fraud shortly after just meeting her. Turns out later, Kent isn't a real priest, and is swindling people out of their money.
- Unscrupulous Hero: Con Man backstory aside, he is willing to manipulate people with important skills into entering the mansion so they will be cursed like him and be forced to help break the curse. However, he does care about the others and risks his life for them a few times.
Harriet
Harriet
Played by: Tiffany Haddish
A New Orleans medium who is drawn into the attempt to exorcise Gracy Manor.
- Insistent Terminology: Prefers “medium” to “psychic”.
- And refers to Astral Projection as “reverse seance”. Justified because real mediums, at least In-Universe, actually call it that.
- Not-So-Phony Psychic: Played with. Harriet begins seemingly as a Phony Psychic, but it turns out she has mild skills she exaggerates. As the plot progresses, she becomes stronger and stronger as a medium, until she and Leota can team up.
Professor Bruce Davis
Professor Bruce Davis
Played by: Danny DeVito
A somewhat eccentric old college professor who is an expert on old haunted buildings.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Bruce has spent sixty years wanting to explore the mansion but has never been given permission to do so. Once he finally does get inside, he promptly ends up being haunted by ghosts and suffering a heart attack, although this is downplayed, as he quickly gets past this and seems to find it Worth It.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: As goofy as he comes across, he does know his stuff, having a deep knowledge of the history of Gracy Manor and coming up with a plan to identify the Hatbox Ghost.
- Jumped at the Call: Unlike the others who immediately left the mansion and were forced to return by the ghosts haunting them, he came to Gracey Manor of his own accord and seemed to take the idea ghosts were real rather well.
The Dead
Hatbox Ghost (SPOILERS)
The Hatbox Ghost / Alistair Crump
Played by: Jared Leto
The leader of the ghosts of Gracy Manor. In life, he was Alistair Crump, a murderous socialite and practitioner of black magic.
- Abusive Parents: His father disowned him for crying too much at his mother’s funeral.
- Adaptational Name Change: The Hatbox Ghost's was previously named Randall Pace in the SLG Comic series.
- Adaptational Villainy: The Hatbox Ghost is an enigmatic character with no clear alignment in the ride, and he's even the Trickster Mentor Big Good of the Marvel comic series. Here, he's the ghost of mass-murdering industrialist Alistair Crump, who killed so many people in life he kept a small graveyard for them under his manor, has added at least 66 people to his body count since his ghost came to the mansion, and tries to kill Ben, Travis and Bruce over the course of the film.
- Ain't Too Proud to Beg: Moments before he is defeated for good, he pleads with Ben to reconsider and join him, even mentioning Alyssa to convince him. It doesn’t work and Ben kicks him down into the underworld.
- Big Bad: He’s the villain of the film, terrorizing the other ghosts of the mansion and orchestrating the plan to gather 1000 souls.
- Big "NO!": Says this as he is defeated and pulled down into the underworld.
- Came Back with a Vengeance: After being cast out by his father and shunned by high society, Crump came back a self-made man and threw lavish balls in which he would kill the socialites who he felt betrayed him. Following his demise, he came back as the Hatbox Ghost to wreak revenge on the world and gather souls to continue his rampage.
- Dead Person Impersonation: His Signature Move is impersonating others to manipulate his victims into offering themselves up to him willingly. He's not actually a very good actor (while possessing Professor Davis he does much to give himself away), which is why he tends to target people so desperate and grieving that they want to believe more than to pay attention to their own common sense.
- Dragged Off to Hell: he gets trapped inside of the Afterlife after failing to bring Ben to his side and use him as his 1000th soul.
- Dream Walker: He is shown to have this power when he enters Ben's dreams and makes him dream of following Alyssa's ghost into the mansion's cemetery.
- Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: The fact that he labels the graves of the people he killed with rhyming epitaphs shows that Crump had a sick sense of humor when he was alive.
- Evil Is Petty: It's revealed during a tour of his home that he forbade any chairs in his foyer because he didn't like the thought of anyone being able to be seated when he walked into a room, that he shortened all the chairs in his dining room while piling pillows on his own seat so he could be taller than everyone else, and that his second wife found out about his third wife and then-mistress when he put up a big portrait of her in the living room and then insulted her for being able to read it.
- Evil Sounds Deep: He has a very deep, echoey voice.
- Manipulative Bastard: He's tricked many people into becoming the mansion's ghosts by making them believe it's the only way to rejoin their lost loved ones (something he tries on Ben and Travis).
- Named After Somebody Famous: Named after Rolly Crump
, a Disney Imagineer who worked on several attractions including The Haunted Mansion. - Off with His Head!: Fed up with his killing and abuse, his staff killed him by decapitation. Thus, in death, his head can move between his neck and his hatbox.
- Rhymes on a Dime: A bit of levity behind this otherwise serious character is his love for silly couplets, which he put on all the tombstones of his victims... although he misfires sometimes.
- Self-Made Orphan: It's implied that he killed his father both to get his inheritance and revenge for his abuse.
- Serial Killer: In life, he murdered those who he believed wronged him. He continues the spree after his spirit is summoned to the mansion.
- The Dreaded: He was as feared in life, as much as he is in death.
- Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?: Justified. He can't just kill one of the main characters for his final sacrifice because the last soul has to be offered willingly.
- Would Hurt a Child: When Ben starts moving on from his grief, the Hatbox Ghost pivots to targeting Travis instead, trying to manipulate the child into an ambiguously-deadly situation while impersonating his dead father.
Madame Leota
Madame Leota
Played by: Jamie Lee Curtis
The medium hired by Master Gracey in an attempt to summon the spirit of Gracey's dead wife.
- The Ace: Known among the medium community as the most powerful ever. Her book of incantations is so powerful, after opening the front cover the reader is admonished, "Unless you are Madame Leota, do not go any farther."
- Losing Your Head: Played with. She was captured and imprisoned in her crystal ball by the Hatbox Ghost. Only her head and flowing hair appears, but apparently she remains whole within the crystal ball. She remarks that she will soon return but that it is quite roomy.
- The Mentor: She helps Harriet improve her skills as a medium until she's nearly on par with Leota.
William Gracey
William Gracey
Played by J.R. Adduci
The original master of the house. Grieving for his lost wife, he engaged the services of Madame Leota to try to speak to her again and conjured up forces he could not control...
- Adaptational Heroism: This version of Master Gracey shares his first name with the murderous pirate version of the character seen in the SLG comic series.
- Driven to Suicide: He took his own life with arsenic after his wife perished. It's revealed the Hatbox Ghost impersonated her and wrote him messages asking him to reunite with her.
- Foil: A deliberate one to Ben, a fellow grieving widower who also wanted to see his lost wife one more time, using occult forces to try to do it instead of Ben's quantum science. But while Ben gave up on the existence of the supernatural after he failed to contact her, Gracey instead doubled-down, demanding more and more seances. (In both cases, it is implied that their failure happened because their wives were at peace and so beyond their reach.) And while Gracey ultimately succumbed to the Hatbox Ghost's manipulations, Ben, partly with aid from Gracey himself, ultimately learns to live with his grief and let go, saving both of them.
- Maligned Mixed Marriage: Seemingly averted; his wife has some African features, but it's never mentioned that this caused any trouble or drama. This is less unrealistic than it sounds; New Orleans had a substantial wealthy and politically powerful mixed-race population in its upper-classes from the days when it was a French colony that persisted until after the Civil War.
Constance Hatchaway
A bride ghost who had murdered her spouses back when she was alive.
- Adaptational Heroism: Constance never displayed any redemption in the original ride, her Stretching Room portrait even implying that she got away with her crimes. Here, she joins in the fight against Alistair when asked to be a hero.
- Heel–Face Turn: She starts out as one of the ghosts working for Alistair. After chasing Kent throughout the mansion alongside many other ghosts, she is convinced by Kent to help in defeating Alistair.
The Hatchet Man
The Hatchet Man
One of the ghosts haunting the mansion.
- Demonic Possession he briefly possess Ben's body while Ben travels through the spirit realm via astral projection.
The Mariner
The Mariner
The ghost who first follows Ben home after an abbreviated first visit to the mansion.
- Affectionate Nickname: Sort of. Trying to communicate directly with him, Ben calls him "Captain," since it is the first sea-related name he can think of. It's clear the Mariner approves of the nickname.
- Aliens Steal Cable: Implied; despite seemingly predating the invention of television, the first thing he always does whenever he has access to a TV and a remote is change the channel so he can watch Deadliest Catch.
- Condensation Clue: Ben ultimately finds a means to communicate with him by repeatedly fogging a bathroom mirror so he can scribble advice into it.
- Ghost Ship: When Ben fulfills his promise of taking him to the sea, he soon steals a boat from some living people, invisibly driving it away. Ben and Travis wisely flee the scene.
- Heel–Face Turn: Although originally one of the spirits tormenting the living cast to force them to return to the mansion implicitly under Crump's influence, partway through the movie the human characters manage to talk the captain into giving them some vital information and helping them locate Crump's severed head and the hat on top of it so he can be banished.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Like many of the ghosts, the Mariner isn't malicious when left to his own devices. He'd rather tease the living than actually hurt them, and seems to prefer watching Deadliest Catch and sailing to haunting. It's only under the influence of the Hatbox Ghost that he does anything threatening.
- Weapons of Their Trade: Ben is almost speared by his fishing harpoon during his first attempt to come home from the mansion.
