1 of 5 | Asher Grodman stars in “Ghosts” on CBS. 2025 Headshot courtesy of John Russo
Asher Grodman first made an impression in the series premiere of Ghosts in 2021 because his character is confined to the afterlife with no pants. He considers making it to Season 5, premiering Thursday at 8:30 p.m. EDT on CBS, a blessing.
In a recent Zoom interview with UPI, Grodman, 38, reflected on five years of Ghosts. Even though his character, Trevor, cannot change his wardrobe since he died, he is grateful to be in his fifth year playing him.
“I’ve been kicking around, hitting my head against brick walls for two decades until this thing came along,” Grodman said. “The vast majority of people who come into this line of work never get a shot like this, so it is a dream and it was a 20 year journey.”
Trevor was a Wall Street broker who died of a drug overdose at a company retreat in 2000. It was implied he took off his pants for a tryst with a sexy limo driver, but a Season 1 episode showed he actually gave his pants to a colleague being hazed.
“Are there days that it would be really nice to wear pants? Yes, there are, absolutely,” Grodman admitted. “But, it is absolutely worth it to do this gig.”
Ghosts films in Montebello, Quebec, at a mansion. In the show, Sam (Rose McIver) inherits the estate of her great aunt.
Sam and her husband, Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar) want to turn the estate into a bed and breakfast. But, when Sam wakes up from a temporary coma after a fall, she is able to see all the ghosts of the people who died on the property, including Trevor.
“Even September in Montreal can get a little chilly if you’re not wearing pants,” Grodman said. “So I am a little more sensitive to the temperature fluctuations than most people are, I’ll say that.”
Grodman confirmed he is wearing underwear beneath the shirt that hangs over his bottom. He does regret that he did not push to style his hair more audaciously in the first season.
“The ’90s had all that swoopy hair,” Grodman said. “We went for the safe choice to have a very clean cut thing but the ’90s, that whole Brad Pitt and Jonathan Taylor Thomas, I do wish we went that route.”
Grodman said nobody else has inquired about the socks he wears in his five seasons of doing the show. He said he did a camera test in black socks but opted for socks that matched his navy blue blazer.
“I feel like there was a conversation about the socks should pop and the socks should be more reminiscent of the era of the ’90s,” Grodman said.
The season premiere resolves the cliffhanger in which Jay accidentally sold his soul to the devil, fooled by a demon posing as a publicist. Trevor gets some one-liners as he and the ghosts react to the situation.
Grodman did tease the return of Trevor’s daughter, guest star Gideon Adlon.
“We get to play with this fun dynamic with Trevor where he is thoroughly unprepared and unqualified to be a father,” Grodman said. “Sam, Jay and Trevor will make a choice that no ghost has made before. I’ll let you imagine what that might be.”
Amongst the ghosts, there is still tension between Trevor and Hetty (Rebecca Wiscoky), a wealthy 19th century aristocrat who died in 1895. Trevor and Hetty dated before they broke up in Season 3.
“I do think there is a brewing tension between Trevor and Hetty,” Grodman said. “I appreciate that our writers have gone with this very slow burn of the tension between them.”
Trevor had already been dead 21 years when Ghosts began. Even five years later, Grodman suspects he has not quite accepted his fate.
“He’s the most recently dead and there is this psychological process I would imagine you have to go through when you’re only a few years removed from life,” Grodman said. “The ripple effect of your life is still being felt in the world.”
The more Ghosts unveils about Trevor, the more Grodman can relate to him. For example, both Trevor and Grodman are Jewish and both had bar mitzvahs at age 13, though the joke on Ghosts was that Trevor had a Mel Gibson-themed reception.
“I’m probably, in part, an actor because I had a bar mitzvah,” Grodman said.
In real life, Grodman dealt with dyslexia and attention deficit disorder growing up. His bar mitzvah marked his first time addressing a crowd of people.
He only formally pursued acting after graduating from Columbia University as an undergrad in 2010. Grodman attempted a summer of Shakespeare at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts.
After that, Grodman went to graduate school at the American Conservatory Theater. He credits acting teachers Bob Krakower and Larry Moss as “the pillars of my education.”
Krakauer in particular taught him ways to learn dialogue with dyslexia.
“One of the great things about Bob Krakower as an acting coach is you don’t spend time getting precious about language,” Grodman said. “Bob was the person that helped me be able to turn this two dimensional thing – it was like mish mosh of words – into pictures and into a reality, to turn it from language into events.”
