‘Ghosts’ Star Utkarsh Ambudkar Shows off ‘Haunted House’ in Exclusive Clip for ‘Secret Celebrity Renovation’

Ghosts star Utkarsh Ambudkar is used to entertaining a few spirits here and there on his smash hit CBS sitcom, but the multi-talented actor and rapper has somewhat of a connection to haunted properties off-screen too. In an exclusive sneak peek clip for PopCulture.com of the CBS home design series, Secret Celebrity Renovation airing Friday at 8 p.m. ET, Ambudkar returns home to Gaithersburg, Maryland to help renovate his parents’ home and create a backyard oasis for them to bask in with their large extended family.

While Ambudkar joked on his Instagram alongside a set of snapshots from reno day that he had “designed and built a whole deck” by himself with his “bare hands and no tools” while the show’s designers Sabrina Soto and Rob Mariano with host Nischelle Turner just “watched and ate all of [his] mom’s food,” there was a lot of construction that went down. In addition to creating a backyard Eden for mom and dad, Ambudkar’s wishes for a complete overhaul of the property meant taking down some of the old structures.

“This is the area that I would really love for you guys to help me with,” Ambudkar says in the exclusive clip of the episode, airing Aug. 26. Showing off a frail deck that is literally falling apart, he adds how it “looks haunted” and needs to come down. “I mean, it looks like a horror movie could be shot back here now.” Mariano, the show’s home improvement contractor, asks Ambudkar if there is anything he would like to share with them before they begin construction. The father-of-two, most hilariously adds: “Well, despite the fact that the deck looks haunted, it’s not. There are no ghosts in here. But there are some skeletons in closets.”

Elsewhere in the episode, Ambudkar reflects on finally being in a position to give back to his parents who sacrificed their own dreams to make sure he had opportunities they never did. In an interview with Stage Buddy in 2018, the actor says that while his parents are proud of him, there was another path they wanted to see rise up in. “I was raised on Bollywood musicals and loved them, but when I told my parents I wanted to be an actor I think they’d much rather I went down the path they went and got a Ph.D. in Biochemistry,” he said. “My father came from a small town and followed his dream to become one of the preeminent scientists in his field. When I told him about my passion, he said he was familiar with the feeling of starting from nothing and working to achieve it. My parents came to visit me when I was shooting Basmati Blues and they ended up as extras in a scene. My father was pushing actors out of his way to get enough close-ups, I think his dream of being in a Bollywood movie came true.”

Ambudkar, who has made an impressive name for himself has starred in a number of hits including Pitch Perfect and New Guy. His other series, Never Have I Ever debuted its third season at No. 1 on Netflix during its premiere weekend. But the actor, best known for playing Jay Arondekar will return in September for a brand new season of Ghosts following its massive ratings win over the first season. While talking to PopCulture.com about the show last October and how it resonates with fans thanks to it being “full of joy and love and heart.”

“I hope it’s something I feel comfortable watching with my kids and my parents and I’m really excited that it sort of hearkens back to the type of viewing experience that we used to enjoy with our families when we were younger,” he told PopCulture. “I think there’s a lot of really, really great specialized hyper-focused, genre television. There’s a lot of stuff for very specific people, but there’s not a lot of stuff for the whole family to sit and watch together. I think Ghosts really fills that need for happy, joyful, connected programming, especially given the last 18 months that we’ve all had.”

Ghosts returns on Sept. 29 on CBS at 8:30 p.m. ET and Amdbukar’s episode of Secret Celebrity Renovation, produced by Juma Entertainment with Robert Horowitz, Brady Connell and Peter DeVita serving as executive producers, airs Friday, Aug. 26 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS and streams on Paramount+. For more on all your favorite CBS programming, stick to PopCulture.com for more.