‘Ghosts’ Star Asher Grodman Explains His Character Trevor’s Major Decision Before Untimely Death

CBS’s Ghosts has not only become a favorite among audiences with stellar ratings across network television, but the writing alone has been a modest masterclass in humanizing death and all the moral complexities faced in the afterlife through comedy. In one of the show’s most beloved and acclaimed episodes “Trevor’s Pants” written by Kira Kalush and Talia Bernstein, series star Asher Grodman opened up about his character Trevor Lefkowitz’s altruistic decision to give up his pants for a hazing victim ahead of the ’90s Wall Street bro’s tragic death.

While audiences got a chance to see glimpses of Trevor’s real personality through interactions with the Woodstone Mansion spirits and even Jay’s sister Bela (Punam Patel), it isn’t until Episode 16 that we learn who he really is. During an interview with Collider during San Diego Comic-Con last month, Grodman recalls the conversations he had with showrunners Joe Port and Joe Wiseman about Trevor’s dynamics through these very distinct friendship circles — both living and dead — and the type of guy the pantless ghost was before his untimely passing. So, what exactly made Trevor, a Wall Street trader respecting the “bro code” with his Lehman Brothers buddies, break the unspoken group rule?

Admitting how they only had “five days” to figure out the dynamic of Trevor with his friends pre-death, Grodman recalls how it was all a deep dive into the psyche of his character. “I remember having a discussion with the Joes [Port and Wiseman] saying, ‘Okay, so is it that he is a member of this group but there’s a side of him that’s beyond them, or is it that he’s a member of the group who just never belonged?’ And it was the former — that he’s in there, but he’s also not in there and I think there’s a relationship with having a younger brother in the Pinkus relationship that then gets flipped with the ghosts because, in many ways, Trevor is the younger brother with the ghosts.”

With an impassioned and effective performance from Grodman that has the audience sympathizing while learning more about Trevor through these intricate layers, the multi-hyphenated star adds how it’s that element of the Trent O’Donnell-directed episode that such a dynamic of “taking care of the little guy” pulls Trevor in. “But not enough for him to completely abandon the bros or the secret and the lies and stuff like that, but enough to say, ‘I can do both,’ that he can take care of this guy and keep a foot in with the group.”

In an interview with TVLine, Grodman admits the big reveal of Trevor taking sympathy on his co-worker who was ordered to get fully naked and find their way back to the city in order to be a part of the group was a “really clever” approach to his character losing his pants. “I loved the fact that I didn’t see it coming, and they used it as an opportunity to build on Trevor,” he told TVLine in support of the episode, which aired March 31. “It’s more than just the pants. It’s actually the motivation for why he did what he did. I think there’s something implied in dying without your pants on that makes it feel like something happened to you or it was about you and Trevor’s death, at least at the end, was kind of about someone else, so that was really exciting.”

As Trevor becomes “aware” that there’s more to him than his toxic co-workers thanks to the Woodstone Mansion ghosts’ support including the encouragement from Sasappis (Román Zaragoza) in stepping up to help him see it that way, Grodman says it’s all about him being an insider who is maybe a “little more complex” now.

“He’s got a new family. It is the family that he’s had for 20 years, but proximity to people is different than how you treat each other and when he realizes that there’s this dude in Sass who has done this very loyal and respectful thing for Trevor so that he could see his life the way he saw it, it’s actually a very insightful thing,” he said. “I think for Trevor, people are what they show you, and at this moment he realizes the people that he’s with for all of eternity are actually a lot more than he thought they were.”

Ghosts Season 2 returns on Sept. 29 at 8:30 p.m. ET on CBS. For more on Ghosts and everything Season 2, stay tuned to the very latest about the show, news about the cast, and everything in between only on PopCulture. In the meantime, relive the first season of Ghosts on Paramount+ for free from June 3 to Sept. 2, 2022.