Ghosts: Asher Grodman on the Fun of Playing a ‘Deeply Unqualified’ Father

It’s not every day you die and become a ghost, just to orchestrate an elaborate scheme to have your living daughter work at the haunted house you inhabit.

That is the predicament Asher Grodman’s Trevor finds himself in this season on Ghosts. The pantless finance bro, who lived a lifestyle of drug drawers and yacht parties when he was alive, now desires to parent his grown adult daughter from beyond the grave.

It’s always a pleasure getting to speak with Grodman about a character and a premise that is “never boring.”

“You’re constantly trying to do better than you did last week and find new ways to make things fresh and interesting. For the first time in the history of our show, someone who’s not related to Sam and Jay is finding out the secret. We’re dealing with new territory. It keeps us on our toes,” Grodman said.

“Trevor is deeply unqualified to be a father, and so putting him in those shoes is a lot of fun.”

On Ghosts Season 5 Episode 5, “T-Daddy,” Trevor attempts to squash Abby’s desire to study poetry in France. For Grodman, it was exciting to play Trevor as a sensible and stern father figure when he has never been any of those things.

“What I like about this episode is — Trevor has lived a life where he basically got to go to any party he wanted. He got to make all the money he wanted. He seemed to have sex with almost anyone he wanted,” he laughed.

“Doors were open to him in life. The only downside to his life is that it ended so early. So the idea that he’s trying to put restrictions on his daughter, all of a sudden, he’s weirdly antithetical to himself.”

“It’s just fun to play a character who’s wrong, who vehemently believes in the wrong thing. That’s always so fun. And it challenges Trevor, even with the previous episode, where he sees himself in the guy who’s hitting on his daughter,” Grodman added.

And no one is terrorizing Trevor for his choices quite like the women in his life.

“It’s funny that Gideon Adlon and Odessa A’zion who are sisters in real life — both of these characters, in very different ways, are challenging Trevor and turning the tables on him.”

Alas, Trevor is fighting to stay alive in a world he’s long separated from, and that makes his story incredibly emotional at times.

“He still has so many connections to the living world, and he’s got his job. I mean, he’s making more money than anybody,” Grodman pointed out. “We are dealing with these existential and universal themes. So someone who’s dead is still trying to be alive? It puts us right in that universal and existential sweet spot. Our goal is always for those moments to have an impact as well.”

Now in his girl-dad era, Trevor’s days of hitting on Sam are long gone, and this season showcases how he has come to depend on her.

“There was a moment in this episode that I lobbied for, and I’m so glad that it got in there,” Grodman revealed when asked about Trevor and Sam’s dynamic.

“It’s the scene where they decide to tell Abby that Trevor is a ghost. I asked to add this little moment of Sam looking at Trevor and Trevor making a decision to do it, which wasn’t initially in the script. It’s a big moment, and it speaks to the journey that Trevor and Sam have taken together.”

And it’s a journey Trevor has not made easy for Sam, to say the least.

“The fact that this ghost has hit on Sam and run her through the ringer, there is a fun growth there. I don’t know that Trevor and Sam are friends. I feel like there are ghosts that she’s friends with, but I like that there is this. They started as real oil and water, and things have really developed over time.”

“I love that there’s always this Trevor/Jay tension too and the fact that there’s an episode where Trevor, who moonlights as a financial advisor and makes hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, is buying cars willy nilly while Jay is having labor issues. It’s just such a fun, tension-filled dynamic. I really love leaning into that.”

Speaking of tension-filled dynamics, you didn’t think we would get through this interview without discussing H-Money, did you?

For Grodman, his on-screen moments with Rebecca Wisocky are something the two continue to have a lot of fun with: “We love finding those little nonverbal behavioral choices to try to ratchet up tension. And we do end up in a lot of scenes together, which I think is the writers also dangling things.”

“The Trevor and Hetty relationship is so specific to who they are. It is combustible, it is competitive, it is sexual, it’s very like Sam and Diane. So we keep turning that dial ever so slowly each time. After we do a take, Rebecca and I will go, ‘I want to try this’ or ‘Why don’t we try XYZ’ to add a little color,'” he confirmed.

“With the way we shoot, you get two, three, maybe four swings at a thing, and you put some choices out there. You don’t know what’s going to get selected in the cut. So we’re also watching this tapestry come together.”

“It’s a testament to our writers and to the concept that this is a world-building show. So these little easter eggs that we develop over time, and the little seeds that lead to something else, are made even better by the fact that our fans pick up on all of it, and they’re in it for the world-building.”

From world-building to a world series, there are few places Ghosts’ success can’t reach these days.

So when an opportunity to see the Dodgers play the Blue Jays in Game 2 of the MLB World Series came up, Jaguars-devoted football fan Grodman swung at the chance — and with a great career philosophy backing him.

“I have an acting coach who told me, in my long drought of a career before Ghosts showed up, ‘If you ever get a show, if that lottery ticket ever comes your way, don’t change your life, don’t go out and buy anything crazy. But if you can cash in on sports, go all for it,” he recalled.

“Sports — it’s so cliche to say, but it just, it makes you feel like a kid again. Like anything can happen, that’s the magic of it.”

A fitting sentiment, given that it is also how watching Ghosts makes us feel.

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Ghosts airs on Thursdays at 8:30c/7:30c on CBS.

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