For two decades, Asher Grodman put on costumes for fleeting TV appearances, but it was only in stripping down that he found true success on Ghosts.
“Usually, 99 of the 100 people who get big breaks have pants on when they do it,” Grodman, 38, who is the odd man out, told The Daily Beast’s Obsessed in 2023.
Five years later, Grodman told Obsessed: The Podcast that his lucky break as a pantless stockbroker on the CBS sitcom Ghosts has continued to surprise him.
“It’s a long journey, but it does make you feel really grateful for the anomaly that is a really great concept for a show, an amazing crew, and an audience with it,” Grodman, who supported decades of acting work by lecturing at Hunter College, said. “And I think something that’s unique about our show is that we’re dealing with stuff that’s really hard to deal with—death, mortality, this kind of existential loneliness—but I’m not wearing pants."
In the hit sitcom, Grodman plays Trevor, a ’90s stockbroker-turned-ghost who, after dying in a New England bed-and-breakfast, haunts the new inkeepers alongside other ghosts who died there over the years: a Viking, a hippie, and a closeted Revolutionary War soldier, among others.
Grodman says that because the ghosts are from bygone eras, the audience finds comfort in staying one step ahead of them.
“At any given moment in this show, the audience is so far ahead of where these ghosts are,” Grodman said, whose character frequently has to explain modern technology to the older ghosts, like movie projection. “The audience has learned many lessons that the ghosts haven’t learned yet. So it’s kind of like watching toddlers trying to figure out how to be human.”
“What I get a lot from fans is that the show feels like a warm hug at the end of a long day. And that means a lot.” Grodman added. “As someone who’s had a lot of hard days, I’ll take that.”
Grodman, whose character exudes a definitive finance bro, d*****bag personality, does not take the typecasting to heart.
“I went to college at Columbia and knew a lot of finance guys, or assumed to be finance guys, so it was not a world that was unfamiliar to me,” Grodman, who has played similar roles on Succession and House of Cards, said.
The actor said he oddly finds comfort in his pantless wardrobe.
“I had never done a comedy before, so I was kind of thrilled that I wasn’t going to be wearing pants,” Grodman joked.
“Well, if I miss that joke, I can just pull a wide shot, see my pasty thighs, and that should help me over the finish line,” he recalled thinking upon reading the script.
Season 5 of Ghosts is available to stream on Paramount+. It has already been renewed for a sixth season.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel to watch new episodes of ‘Obsessed: The Podcast’ every Wednesday and Friday. And follow our feed to listen to the show the next morning on your favorite podcast platform.
