There’s a moment in Thursday night’s Christmas-themed “Ghosts” two-parter where the body of Rose McIver’s character, Sam, is suddenly inhabited by sassy downstairs cholera spirit Nancy (Betsy Sodaro). “Ghosts” requires its stars to participate in all sorts of hijinks on a weekly basis — and in this case, McIver was tasked with imitating Sodaro as Nancy.
“I adore Betsy so much,” McIver tells Variety. “I adore her as a person, as a performer. I’m a huge fan. So I felt very honored that I got to channel a little Nancy, and she was predictably so generous to work with.”
McIver says Sodaro helped her prepare by sharing videos to teach how to play Nancy as a loud-mouthed, inappropriate, over-the-top ghost. “She put these videos down of her saying her dialog and showing me how she would behave,” McIver says. “She was like, ‘I feel like I’m auditioning to play myself. This doesn’t feel quite right,’ And then on set, she was able to go behind the monitors and throw some ideas out as well. It was a great character to get to step into. She built something so funny and so specific that there were nice tangible things to hang my work on.”
In “A Very Arondekar Christmas” parts 1 and 2, Jay’s parents Mahesh (Bernard White) and Champa (Sakina Jaffrey) visit the B&B for the first time, and they’re not impressed. Sam has forever been desperate to win Champa’s respect by, at the very least, being added to the family group text. When Nancy climbs into Sam’s body, it seems like a surefire disaster — but to the surprise of everyone, Champa actually starts to bond with her.
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“Of all the characters to be possessed by, to have Nancy when you’re trying to make a good impression on your in laws, is certainly a dice roll,” McIver says.
And indeed, Nancy-as-Sam doesn’t win Champa over for long, as her off-putting actions are still, well, off-putting. But by the end of the episodes, the real Sam has managed to earn some new respect from Champa, and a place in the text chain.
Sakina Jaffrey as Champa, Rebecca Wisocky as Hetty, Bernard White as Mahesh, Brandon Scott Jones as Isaac, and Danielle Pinnock as Alberta, on “Ghosts” (Bertrand Calmeau/CBS)
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“That’s the best Christmas present she could ever have asked for,” McIver says. “I mean, Sakina is incredible. She’s so funny and so effortless and easy and just the perfect choice for Champa. You can completely see why Sam wants desperately to be liked by her. There was a little bit of life imitating art going on set, as I’m a big fan of Sakina as well.”
“A Very Arondekar Christmas” is also a landmark moment for Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar), who has his own out-of-body experience when Pete (Richie Moriarty) takes it over. Jay is thrown out of his body completely, putting him temporarily in ghost-land — where he gets to interact with all of the show’s ghosts for the first time.
“It’s huge,” McIver says. “I’m so happy that we got to this place, and it was a really imaginative way for them to find it. And it was a technical feat. Utkarsh and Richie Keen, who directed us, did a really fantastic job, and Richie Moriarty at navigating the three different versions of Jay, and the actual practicality of shooting those on set. Where you have all these stand ins and VFX, it was really impressive.
“And story wise, to have these people that Jay has built a relationship with sight unseen for the last few years, finally culminate in this incredibly exciting moment where he’s able to see how similar they are to what he’s expected, where the differences are and hug them,” she adds. “Now he’s one step ahead of Sam, in that he’s been able to have physical contact with the ghosts and she hasn’t. It feels like a real landmark episode for us as a series.”
Speaking of landmark moments, McIver has just directed her first-ever episode of television, which is coming up this season on “Ghosts.” Her episode (the 13th of Season 4) airs sometime later this winter, and focuses on Pete’s backstory.
“I will always be eternally grateful that this show has now given me my first opportunity to direct in television,” she says. “It’s been something I had really wanted to do and that I’m really proud of. I have been bitten by the bug, so to speak. It’s all I want to do and it’s hard shifting back out of the director’s seat. I had a great time.”
McIver says it helped that “Ghosts” is now a well-oiled machine, and she is so familiar with the show, its tone and its characters. “It’s an incredible privilege to have spent four years with people you develop a shorthand, and you really understand people’s strengths and weaknesses,” she says. “It allows you to fast track past some of the pleasantries, and I was able to cut to the chase. Everyone was really patient and supportive, and sort of indulged my creative choices. I hopefully haven’t tanked it so badly.”
McIver says she’s been laying the groundwork to direct for some time; when she starred on The CW’s “iZombie,” she even took the Warner Bros. directing workshop.
“And now, to have had that opportunity like a dog with a bone, I don’t want to let it go,” she says. “We’ll see how easy or difficult that path is going forward, but I certainly have had a great leaping off point. And very grateful to CBS and the show the showrunners, everybody for letting me do this.”