'Ghosts' Star Rose McIver Reveals Incredible Technical Detail in Filming
A lot goes into creating a TV show but when it's a bit more whimsical and layered like CBS's Ghosts, you have to be very particular with details as revealed by series star Rose McIver. In an interview with Variety amid Emmys 2022 voting ahead of the nominations announcement next month, the New Zealand-born actress revealed the show is not just fun for her and the cast but a very "technical project" for everyone involved.
"It's very technical for our crew as well. Like, we can't have a piece of furniture move that they've been sitting on," she said. "For example, when one of the guys sits down on a bed so that they're not physically leaving an imprint, which we normally would do, they put a board of wood underneath the sheets. There's lots of little details like that that people are having to think about all the time. For something that ends up coming off very fun, I have a great deal of respect for all of the concentration that has gone into it."
When it comes to shooting without her Ghosts co-stars — especially the spirits of Woodstone Mansion played by Danielle Pinnock, Asher Grodman, Brandon Scott Jones, Richie Moriarty, Román Zaragoza, Rebecca Wisocky, Sheila Carrasco and Devan Chandler Long — McIver says a lot of them "stick around" so that they are at least "able to hear" the other actors reading their own dialogue, which "makes a world of difference" in her own process. "I was taught that acting is reacting. It's very important to me, as much as possible, not to have to work with a cross of yellow tape stuck to a tennis ball on a stick," she said. "That happens, and we all get why and why and how that happens, but it enhances everything when people have other scene members to play off. Even just an audible cue makes a big difference."
McIver echoed similar sentiments with The Hollywood Reporter when speaking about the interaction with her ghostly co-stars and the challenges of playing opposite characters her on-screen counter Sam can't see. "The most important thing is focus. I'm working with nine comedians, essentially, and they're so brilliant," she said. "That's the magic that is essential in the show, and that we need to survive. And it's been really technically interesting. I really like being an actor who works with her crew to try to achieve things together and when we say it's an ensemble, it isn't just the actors — it's the crew, especially when people are improvising and being deeply surprising in any moment. The boom operator has to work out how he's going to possibly try to reach across the room and grab somebody's ad-lib line that they've just thrown in, or the camera is working out who they're pulling focus to at any given moment."
For more on Ghosts, 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.