3 min read- Ghosts returns from its midseason hiatus on February 26 at 8:30 p.m. ET on CBS.
- Asher Grodman tells Country Living he nearly passed on auditioning for the part of Trevor, reasoning that even if he got it, most pilots don’t work out.
- Another audition just beforehand left him an hour late for the one for Ghosts.
Finally, Ghosts Season 5 is back from its midseason break. December’s double Christmas episode ended on a major cliffhanger after Trevor—the spirit of a ’90s finance bro—kissed Patience, a stern 17th-century Puritan ghost. What fresh chaos has Trevor unleashed upon the living and dead residents of Woodstone B&B this time? We’re not quite sure yet, except that we’ll finally get to meet “The Others.”
Of course, the chaos is what makes the show so fun, and just like all the “Main Eight” ghosts, it’s hard to imagine the series without Trevor being, well, Trevor. But in reality, we came pretty close to having a different Trevor Lefkowitz entirely. Asher Grodman, the actor who plays him, almost passed on auditioning—and then he was an hour late.
Don’t get the wrong idea. Grodman in real life is down-to-earth, with humble roots—and not one to take a career opportunity lightly. His parents raised him and his younger brother on an old horse farm in Califon, New Jersey, with no horses but as many as 14 dogs and 6 cats, deer, black bears, and “whatever wanted to roam on the property,” he tells Country Living. “It was a very nature-forward childhood.”
He started auditioning for pilots at 14, but it wasn’t easy and success wasn’t immediate. “I’m dyslexic, and I have had a lot of bad vocal issues. Nothing came naturally about this,” he says, but he kept going.
After earning his MFA from the American Conservatory Theater’s then-degree program in San Francisco, he earned money by substitute teaching and coached other aspiring actors for free. Then he moved back to New York, where he hoped to teach at a college, but no positions were open. So he jumped on a volunteer opportunity to teach acting to 16- to 18-year-olds in the criminal justice system awaiting trial at Rikers Island. These experiences, which, as you might imagine, required a lot of improvising and creative problem-solving, helped him crystallize his approach to acting.
So, when the Ghosts audition came up and his first instinct was to pass, he wasn’t sitting on his laurels; he just wasn’t optimistic.
“I’ve been doing this for 20 years, and for most of those 20 years, this business was telling me very clearly to go away—you are not built for this,” Grodman says. He also knew from experience that the chances of a pilot audition working out are akin to winning the lottery. “Even if you got it, the odds of it actually getting made or going to series were, like, zero. So it all just seemed like a waste of time.”
At the time, he was much more excited about an audition for a Blue Bloods guest-star spot, which seemed more attainable. But his agent pushed him to give the Ghosts audition a chance. Then he read the script.
“It’s just an incredible concept. It was the best pilot I’ve ever read,” he says, “I remember reading it and thinking, this thing works. I just have to get out of the way and let it happen. I made a point of trying to bring in a little bit more kind of heart to this guy.”
So, he decided to audition. But why was he late?!
Well, he had another audition right before the one for Ghosts, and it was one where he had something to prove. “It was with a casting director who had been rough on me when I was a kid, just like, was not a fan. It was the first time I was seeing them in 15 years, so I really wanted to make sure that I did that audition well and kind of put that monkey off my back. So I walked into the Ghosts audition having gotten to exercise that demon, so to speak.”
While that other audition did make him an hour late, fortunately it didn’t prevent him from landing the part of Trevor. Who knows, maybe the confidence boost even helped.
Catch new episodes of Ghosts on Thursdays at 8:30 p.m. ET on CBS, or stream the next day on Paramount+, where you can also catch up on all past seasons.
Terri Robertson has been an editor and storyteller for more than 20 years. As Senior Digital Editor at Country Living, she curates daily newsletters and has found a niche writing about odd corners of the internet and people embracing American life off the beaten path. She’s passionate about gardening and nature, writing about everything from super monarchs to supermoons. She also contributes to Country Living’s entertainment coverage, including HGTV stars, popular TV shows, and music.
Terri began her career proofreading Southern Living cookbooks—a first job befitting an English major with a childhood penchant for reading her mom’s cookbooks—and went on to edit many food, garden, and lifestyle titles. She later worked for the University of Alabama’s marketing and communications division, capturing the stories of students and faculty.
Returning to lifestyle media in 2017, she covered local arts, culture, and business news in Birmingham, Alabama, for Bham Now and later served as digital media manager for Flower magazine, a luxury home, garden, and lifestyle publication, before finding her home at Country Living. She and her husband live with their four cats in Birmingham.
