Actor Asher Grodman talks to ET about Reid’s guest appearance and teases a major cliffhanger in the season 2 finale.
Tara Reid swings by the mansion to pay respects to Trevor in the latest episode of Ghosts.
In Thursday’s installment, titled “Trevor’s Body,” the actress — who happens to be Trevor’s celebrity crush — swings by Woodstone Manor to attend Trevor’s memorial after his remains are found on the grounds. Reid’s surprise appearance at the manor for the impromptu service, which brings Trevor’s parents into the fold, stuns Sam, Jay and the other ghosts.
ET exclusively premieres a sneak peek featuring Reid as she makes her presence known to everyone at Woodstone. While Trevor is understandably excited about Reid attending his memorial, he’s even more impressed when he learns his brother arranged for her to come by through a Cameo-like booking app named Poppin’. Watch the hilarious moment in the clip above.
Reid’s guest spot on Ghosts is a full-circle moment for Trevor and the CBS comedy, which was recently picked up for a third season. Trevor, a former Wall Street “bro,” first mentioned Reid in the series’ pilot in 2021 when he revealed that he participated in her birthday party in the late ’90s with his investment banking co-workers.
The actress caught the wind of Ghosts after a clip from that episode was shared on Twitter by Ghosts actor Asher Grodman, who plays Trevor. Reid tweeted at the time that “the show looks fun.”
“The Tara Reid monologue thing that I did in the pilot started making the rounds on social media and Tara quote tweeted it and was like, ‘You guys are funny.’ And I freaked out,” Grodman recalled to ET. “We were like, ‘We got to get her on the show.’ And for us, we’re just there trying to make our stupid little jokes and hope someone thinks it’s funny. We’re poking these bears and we’re making fun of reality television and then suddenly, one of these cultural icons that we’ re poking turns around and is like, ‘Oh, I like this.’ It was very, very validating. A year-and-a-half later, to come full circle and have her join the party is surreal.”
“And then working with her was lovely. She’s so sweet and just joined in on the party and had a sense of humor about the whole thing,” Grodman added. “It was great. It was just fun to have her on set for a few days. I think we all had a blast.”
Reid’s Woodstone drop-by also serves another purpose. The actor teased she will “give you a little bit of insight into what it was like to spend time with Trevor in his heyday.”
But Trevor will have his hands full with his parents, Esther (Laraine Newman) and Lenny (Chip Zien), who he discovers have since divorced following his death and he’s possibly to blame. In an effort to bring them back together, he tasks Sam into “parent trapping” them into rekindling their relationship.
“With Trevor’s parents actually showing up, now he really gets to go back and feel like a child and find that helplessness. And the play of childhood is replaced with the desperation of childhood,” Grodman said. “And for Trevor, the worst thing that ever happened to Trevor was the idea that realizing that his friends weren’t really his friends in [the season 1 episode] ‘Trevor’s Pants.’ All Trevor ever wants is everyone to be together, partying and having a good time. So for him, the idea that because of him, his parents are now apart, that’s his worst nightmare. You get to go on this journey with him of — we make a joke of it — a ghost of divorce. What is that journey of trying to come to terms with the world you left behind? And is it your fault? Is it not your fault? How do you deal with that? We deal with the existential stuff, but at the same time, Tara Reid is going to show up and we’re going to make a lot of jokes.”
Looking ahead to the future, Grodman hinted that there’s much more to come with regard to Trevor’s secret hookups with Hetty, a shocking reveal in the closing moments of the winter finale.
“In some ways, I was surprised. In other ways, I was thrilled,” he said, sharing that both he and actress Rebecca Wisocky, who plays Hetty, separately pitched a storyline involving Trevor and Hetty prior to season 2. “They’re two characters who are dangerously similar and dangerously different. They’ll look at a room and manipulate it in similar ways. For Trevor, it’s more about the respect that comes from power. For Hetty, it’s more just the power.”
“There’s this fun play of this transactional, but sexual relationship that they have. We’ve all had a year now with Sam and Jay, watching them go to bed together every night. And now as little kids, we’re all acting out. Everyone is sleeping with everyone, everyone is dating, everyone’s in relationships. But it’s fun that Trevor and Hetty is not the romantic one. We’re all modeling out these relationship dynamics, but for Trevor and Hetty, it’s in a very Trevor and Hetty way,” Grodman noted, teasing that viewers will be “going on a little journey with the two of them” as the season progresses. “That’ll develop and play out. They will battle and they will work together to manipulate people and then work on manipulating each other. You’ll get a full feast of Trevor and Hetty.”
As for how the upcoming season 2 finale tees up the third season, Grodman hinted that major changes are coming.
“There’s going to be a big cliffhanger that’s going to definitely shake up what has been the norm for the last two years,” he said. “I cannot elaborate on that, but it does seem like there might be some big transitions coming up.”
Ghosts airs Thursdays at 8:30 p.m. ET/PT on CBS.
