When Trevor first shows up on the new CBS series Ghosts, the first thing you likely notice is that he isn’t wearing any pants. The finance bro died without any pants on, and now he’s stuck living in the afterlife without them. HollywoodLife spoke EXCLUSIVELY with Asher Grodman about whether or not Trevor will ever get pants.
“Why would you want him to get pants? The only way that I could imagine him getting pants is if, when, how we reveal it in flashbacks, I should say, which may happen. I don’t know. I think for most of the series you’re going to be stuck with my pasty thighs,” Asher said.
When Asher learned he was going to play a character that wears no pants, he was a little nervous. However, he enjoys the no-pants aspect of his character.
“One of my oldest friends when I first got the job, and I explained the role to him and that I wouldn’t be wearing pants,” Asher said. “He said, ‘Have they seen your legs?’ And I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘I don’t know that you have this job, maybe they have to still cross some Ts and dot the Is.’ But there was no leg audition, so I made it. To be honest with you, in the audition process, as a guy who’s never really done comedy before, especially on camera, it’s kind of a relief. Even if there’s something where there’s some heavy lifting in the scene, I just remember: Oh, I’m not wearing any pants. So part of the joke is already set up. But right before we shot the pilot, I was quarantining with my parents for however long, 6 to 7 months, and only seeing like 4 human beings. It did dawn on me the night before the shoot… I was like, ‘Oh God, tomorrow morning, I’m going to be around 250 people and not have any pants on.’ Suddenly, I started doing all the scenes without my pants on. But I have discovered that the secret is to take my pants off well before cameras start rolling because it’s like getting into a cold pool. You know you want to get past the initial shock, that way I’m comfortable. Everyone around me is a little more uncomfortable, but I’m feeling better.”
During the premiere episode, there was a moment where Trevor touched a vase and it fell to the floor. Samantha, one of the new residents of the house where the ghosts reside, tripped on the vase and fell down the stairs.
“Each of the ghosts have a little bit of a kind of otherworldly power about them,” Asher explained. “So Trevor, with a lot of effort and mustering up a lot of strength, is able to move things in the living world. It’s not the most effective power, but he does have it. So if the ghosts want to move some things, Trevor’s the one you call. As you’ve seen, Thor has the ability to make the lights flicker because he was struck by lightning. Isaac has the ability, or I don’t know if it’s a skill, but if he gets walked through, it smells like a fart. Each of us has our own little superpower.”
Since the ghosts have some type of supernatural ability that connects them to the real world, Asher noted that the show has “endless possibilities. When I first read the script I was like, I love this thing because I have no idea what they’re going to do next. They could take this thing anywhere because there’s so much potential, so many directions they could go. There’s a lot of possibilities.”
As for what’s next now that Sam can see the ghosts, Asher said, “Essentially, she has, at the very least, 8 new roommates. So there’s that and relationships to be forged with every single one of them and negotiations to be struck. In Trevor’s mind, it’s like this gorgeous young woman just moved into the house and she sees me. I haven’t been seen by a living person in 20 years. He’s thrilled. That relationship grows and starts where it starts and ends up in many different places.”
Right away, you could see that Trevor and Pete are going to be quite the dynamic duo onscreen. Asher and co-star Richie Moriarty’s real-life friendship has made its way into their characters.
“It’s very clear to us that those two are buddies. They’re the most recently dead. Pete understands maybe half of Trevor’s references, which brings them also closer together. But the other thing that I think plays a role in that is Richie Moriarty. He’s amazing. I love this man. He’s incredible. He and I are the two New Yorkers in the cast. Everyone else is in LA. So as we would start and stop this thing, Richie and I would board a plane and fly out to LA and then fly back. We were always going back and forth. When we were in town, we were carpooling together. There was a lot of anxious travel time that we shared. We went to the airport in shields and masks and hazmat suits and all that so we became friendly. As happens a lot, when you’re creating a show, the relationships between the actors start to permeate the screen. When I flick his arrow in the pilot, that ended up being in a lot of ads. It was just this fun moment. It wasn’t in the script, it was just Richie and I screwing around and the director saw it and was like, ‘Let’s do that. I love that.’ I think that’s happening with a lot of people in the cast. We all got really close kind of sitting in this limbo for so long, and then when the opportunity came to shoot, everyone was really ready to play. You’re gonna see a lot more of that from everyone.” Ghosts airs Thursdays on CBS.