- Asher Grodman, 38, tells Country Living he began auditioning for TV pilots at age 14—and he dealt with years of rejection before landing his breakthrough role as Trevor on the CBS series Ghosts.
- In 2019, he nearly passed on auditioning for the series, reasoning that even if he got it, the odds were slim the pilot would work out.
- Another audition just beforehand left him an hour late for his Ghosts audition.
If you’re a fan of the series Ghosts, now in its fifth season on CBS, you’ve probably become attached to the actors who play the “Main Eight” spirits of the sprawling countryside Woodstone B&B. But as Country Living found out when chatting with Asher Grodman, who plays the ghost of ’90s finance bro Trevor Lefkowitz, he almost passed on trying for the role. Then he was an hour late for his audition!
Ghosts with a different Trevor—can you imagine? The story is coming up, but to understand what led to this scenario, it helps to first know a bit about Grodman’s background.
Far from Hollywood, Grodman grew up in rural Califon, New Jersey. His parents raised him and his younger brother on an old horse farm—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. He thinks his mom, who spent a lot of time on her family’s farm in Oklahoma growing up, was trying to recreate that environment. “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 in 2019 and his first instinct was to pass, he wasn’t sitting on his laurels; he had just learned from experience not to be 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+.
Terri Robertson has been an editor and storyteller for more than 20 years. As Deputy 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.
