‘Ghosts’ Star Asher Grodman on Meeting Trevor’s Parents & Welcoming Tara Reid
Spoiler Alert
[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Ghosts Season 2, Episode 14, “Trevor’s Body.”]
Ghosts may have answered the question about what happened to Trevor’s (Asher Grodman) pants in Season 1, but now fans are finding out what happened to his body as the latest episode, aptly titled “Trevor’s Body,” uncovers his final resting place and introduces viewers to important individuals from his past life.
When his skeleton is recovered from a body of water on the Woodstone property, Trevor’s parents Lenny (Chip Zein) and Esther (Laraine Newman) pay a visit to collect the remains. Upon their visit, Trevor is overjoyed to see family, but immediately saddened to discover they wound up getting divorced. In an attempt to woo his parents back together, Trevor devises a scheme to have Sam (Rose McIver) organize a memorial service to keep his parents close together for a few days.
Little obstacles prove to get in the way at certain points, and when surprise memorial guest Tara Reid makes a comment about Lenny hitting on her, Esther can’t get away from him soon enough. Sam serves as a middle ground, communicating Trevor’s feelings to his parents without revealing she’s talking to his ghost. It’s through this conversation that Trevor learns his parents didn’t get divorced because of his death, but because they’d always had issues they hid from their kids. Reassured, Trevor parts with his parents in peace, even if they didn’t get back together.
(Credit: Bertrand Calmeau/CBS)
Below, Grodman opens up about Trevor’s family reunion, welcoming Tara Reid to the show, hopes to meet Trevor’s brother in the future, and what fans can expect from the Trevor-Hetty (Rebecca Wisocky) dynamic moving forward.
Trevor’s body is discovered in this episode and we finally get to meet his parents, Lenny and Esther. Were you excited to get a better understanding of your character and his past life?
Asher Grodman: Yes, very excited. Something very special about our show that I think we’re always lobbying to lean into more is, while we can never leave the house and we’re stuck in one location, there’s so much potential to go back in time. Because we’ve all been around, it’s basically a show that’s like this waltz through history with these mismatched clowns. So to be able to get any insight into how the writers see our characters or any opportunity to get a prequel on what’s happening right now is always the most exciting. I got so lucky because Chip Zein and Laraine Newman are so wonderful. They’re legends. So it was a lot of fun. And it was fun to see how all of the present-day stuff becomes so much richer because now we have more specifics on where he came from.
When you read the script, what were you thinking when you found out that Tara Reid was gonna be at Trevor’s memorial?
We are usually the last people to find out anything. So I learned that at the table read, which was about 24 hours before we started shooting it. I was thrilled. I remember of all the table reads [we’ve done], I think this is the one I laughed the hardest at. I remember crying from laughing. It was so funny. And the idea of Tara [was hilarious].
(Credit: Bertrand Calmeau/CBS)
Most of the episode revolves around Trevor’s scheme to get his parents back together after learning they got divorced after he died. What was it like getting to explore a more kind-hearted and child-like vulnerability?
It’s like we’re all like little eight-year-olds at our core, and Sam and Jay are our parents, or at least Sam is. And so, a lot of the schemes and stuff like that, he’s very limited in his outreach. But in this one case, there is this opportunity because it is his parents and I don’t wanna say it brings up existential stuff, but it does. Of trying to take care of the people you love and who loved you. Trevor and Pete (Richie Moriarty) are the only ones who ever really can reach out and connect to anyone because of the proximity of their deaths. So this was a really special kind of journey to go on. It’s a very silly show where I’m running around with no pants on, and the idea of a son trying to help out his parents and then the son kind of getting some closure from his parents at the end was very clever and exciting.
Trevor is so determined in his efforts. Does that stem from him really wanting them to be together, or does he feel a sense of obligation and guilt?
I think the latter, especially cause Trevor is the most social of all the ghosts. The worst thing that ever happened to him was realizing that his friends didn’t view their friendship as deeply as he did. He realized that these guys weren’t capable of seeing him in the way that he saw them. So this comes out of that kind of the puppy-ish core of Trevor that he wants everyone to be together and for everyone to have a good time. Knowing that he was responsible, even in the smallest way for people being separated, especially the nest of his childhood, I think that’s devastating. The worst thing he can think of happening to someone is for them to be alone.
(Credit: Bertrand Calmeau/CBS)
One person notably absent from the memorial is Trevor’s brother. Trevor doesn’t seem upset though because “J-Dog” sent Tara Reid. Do you hope that Trevor’s brother stops by the B&B someday?
I’m hoping that J-Dog gets his day in the sun, cause how fun would that be? And to see how they’re similar, but also how very different. Yes, I’m hoping so. To get very little space on a page, you were able to get a very specific picture of who Jeremy is, and that’s always very exciting.
One funny moment in the episode involves the ghosts spying on Trevor’s parents during a late-night rendezvous, and he’s horrified by this fact. Was it fun getting to play the prudish ghost this time around?
It lets you make certain jokes that you probably wouldn’t be able to make if I had pants on. But at the same time, there is this fun reversal. It’s very similar to some of my favorite scenes with Trevor and Stephanie (Odessa A’zion) the attic ghost because she is all over him and he doesn’t want it. So it’s those opportunities where you reverse it, where you kind of caught Trevor in a moment where he’s actually not thinking about sex very much and, probably would like to have some of the sexual details of his life, and particularly his parents’ life closed. And suddenly, uh, everyone in the house is enjoying the view the way that Trevor would usually.
(Credit: Bertrand Calmeau/CBS)
One portion of Trevor’s memorial features actual childhood photos of you. Was there any truth to the Mel Gibson Bar Mitzvah or was that photoshopped with one of your real-life pictures?
I did not have a Mel Gibson-themed Bar Mitzvah. I think it’s such a funny idea that he’s a huge Mel Gibson fan and that they never really popped the bubble. A lot of those pictures are mine. I do believe there was photoshop involved with the Mel Gibson thing. The big takeaway from this is I played football and I was a fencer for a long time. So those were like my sports and I never really played basketball. I know Joe Port, our showrunner, was very disappointed and frustrated with the fact that I didn’t play basketball growing up. He expressed his disappointment to me multiple times.
Looking ahead to the future, one dynamic that’s been fun to see evolve this season is Trevor and Hetty’s. I don’t want to call it a relationship because it seems more mutually transactional, but will we see more of that as Season 2 progresses?
I know that both Rebecca and I pitched that there should be some kind of Trevor and Hetty entanglement [this season]. Because I agree with you, they’re not dating. Neither of them wants to date the other one, and neither of them has feelings for the other one, so there’s this old-money-new-money thing. There’s a lot of combustible energy there, and I’m the one that she wants to send to hell, and I’m the one who’s sexually free, and she’s the one who’s repressed, although that’s certainly changing this season.
So there’s a polar opposite thing, and yet both of them would love nothing more than to dominate everyone. For her, it’s more about power, and for Trevor it’s more about respect. But there is this transactional thing that is so intrinsic to who these two characters are. I find that to be so much fun. I know Rebecca does too. And Rebecca is a craftswoman. She’s so much fun to work with and she approaches this work a lot like I do. It’s always a lot of fun.
Is there anything else fans should look out for as Season 2 continues?
You’re gonna see more of the fun with the Trevor and Hetty stuff because no one else in the house, maybe Isaac a little bit, but no one else in the house quite schemes the same way that they do. Right. So I think we’re gonna see some scheming that’s gonna take place.
Ghosts, Season 2, Thursdays, 8:30/7:30c, CBS
