CBS’ comedy lineup got a whole lot spookier this fall with the premiere of Ghosts, but the spirits inhabiting this haunted house mostly aren’t the terrifying kind. The ghosts of Ghosts are a motley crew with very different backstories, whose afterlives are changed in a big way thanks to Samantha moving in with her husband and able to actually see them. One of the particularly standout ghosts is Trevor, who just so happened to die not wearing any pants. Actor Asher Grodman recently spoke with CinemaBlend about Ghosts and playing a pantsless character, and that’s not all.
Asher Grodman’s Trevor is actually the most recent ghost of the house, as a Wall Street trader who liked to party... before dying without his pants in the 90s. While his look is definitely one of the most noticeable of the crew of ghosts, it’s also less elaborate than the likes of Alberta, Thorfinn, and Pete, to name just a few. Grodman weighed in on his costume as seemingly one of the less complicated of Ghosts:
That's probably true. Yeah, I mean, we haven't shot in frigid cold yet. I'm sure that'll be coming up in the next few weeks. So you know, ask me that question in a month. But right now, it's pretty simple.
Considering that Ghosts currently films up in Montreal, Canada after shooting the pilot in Los Angeles, fans can probably hope for Asher Grodman’s sake that Trevor doesn’t have too many outdoor scenes once the temperature starts dropping! They can’t burn a gazebo every week for warmth. But Trevor’s costume technically only covering half of him didn’t mean that there wasn’t a process behind figuring out what kind of clothes Trevor would go for… and die in:
We had a costume fitting and the idea and kind of the question was, okay, so how do we set up this joke? It's gonna be important that he wears the jacket. So how do you set it up so that the absence of pants is as clear as it could possibly be? And Trevor was a partier. He was down to play and so he was going to look good. He was going to look put together, which also helps emphasize seeing my pasty ass thighs. It's very easy to get in and out of, and the people who helped us find it... It's crazy because you come up with these ideas in a pre-production process and you have a few days to come up with it. And then you've got it, and that's what you're doing for however long the show runs. So there's some really smart people who are in charge of those designs and deserve a lot of credit.
Unlike Sam (played by iZombie’s Rose McIver) and Jay, the ghosts will never change their clothes into something else unless Ghosts changes the rules, so Asher Grodman’s Trevor will be sporting the same jacket, same tie, and same lack of pants for however long the show runs. And considering how well Ghosts has been performing with viewers in the episodes so far, it could enjoy a long run!
Asher Grodman appeared on a number of shows prior to Ghosts, ranging from Chicago Med to Succession to Law & Order: SVU, but never to play a character quite like Trevor. The actor explained how he got used to having a pantsless costume for a show that quickly became the #1 new comedy and scored a full-season order, and it turns out that he took a particular approach to getting used to his new costume:
Yeah, it took a second. When we finally got to shoot the pilot, I had been quarantining, like out on a farm with my family. I hadn't seen more than three or four people at a time. And so when I was out in LA all of a sudden, and aware that I was going to be surrounded by 100+ people, and I'd gone through my scenes, it dawned on me the night before. I was like, 'Oh, I'm gonna have to do this without pants on.' And so I'm walking around my hotel room pantsless going through the scenes. Trying to get a feel for it. But what I discovered was the key is to take my pants off well before the cameras start rolling. Because it's like getting into a cold pool. You just got to get in early, get used to it. If you take them off right as the camera's rolling... it's that nightmare of, you're doing a speech and you're in your underwear, which for me is daily work process. So taking it off early gets me comfortable. Everyone else around me gets a little uncomfortable, but it's for the sake of art.
Trevor seems comfortable with his no-pants afterlife, so Asher Grodman’s methods for getting used to his costume clearly worked. Plus, Trevor certainly looks snazzier than some of the other ghosts in the house, even he’s missing half of his snazzy suit. At least he doesn't have an arrow in his neck! And the basement ghosts of the people who died from cholera look pretty gruesome by sitcom standards, especially compared to the ghosts who spend their time upstairs. When I noted that I’ve really enjoyed that the upstairs ghosts are so freaked out by the basement ghosts, Grodman said:
Yeah, we're terrified. We're terrified. They're disgusting. They're smelly. They're terrifying and we don't want them up here. It does seem like they like to be down there too. So there's a mutual understanding, and as the season goes on, you might discover that there are other groups of ghosts too that are around. So there's more to be discovered, as you will see.
Well, if you’re going to be a smelly and terrifying cholera ghost, then it’s nice to have friends down in your basement! Interestingly, Asher Grodman previewed that there are some other ghosts that haven’t yet appeared on the show. Episodes have visited all kinds of corners of the house, and Sam hasn’t discovered any new groups other than the scary ones in the basement and the TV-loving ones upstairs; could there be some attic ghosts? Some ghosts on the grounds who haven’t shown themselves yet, despite Thorfinn’s Viking funeral and the Halloween gazebo incident?
Fans will just have to keep watching to discover these other groups of ghosts. Based on the impressive ratings for the first season so far, there’s probably no reason to think that any fans will give up on Ghosts. The show actually won its time slot with its Halloween-themed episode October 28, with Spoiler TV reporting an impressive rating of 0.57 and audience of 5.7 million. Sadly, the ghosts themselves couldn’t go for Halloween costumes (even though Sam and Jay went full Step Brothers), but Asher Grodman had some thoughts on what kind of costume Trevor would have chosen back in his days among the living:
Oh wow, that's a really good question. I think it'd be something that was a joke. I could see him being part of a Goonies costume. I would think that he would reference things from his childhood, is my guess. I don't think he would do the simple ones. The like, the Batman ones and stuff like that. I think he try to find some like if you know it, you know it-type thing.
Sure, some people could go the obvious route of a Batman look, but Asher Grodman doesn’t think that Trevor would be one of those people! Short of flashbacks, viewers will presumably never see Grodman wearing a Halloween costume (or anything other than what he was wearing in his first appearance in the pilot episode) as Trevor, but it’s fun to imagine. And Trevor will undoubtedly deliver plenty of laughs no matter what.
You can find Asher Grodman as Trevor in new episodes of Ghosts, airing at 9 p.m. ET on Thursdays on CBS, and check back with CinemaBlend for more from the actor. Ghosts was one of two CBS shows to receive a full-season order after just three full episodes had aired, so the future is bright for television’s spookiest sitcom as the fall TV schedule continues.
