During his episode of Collider Forces, Ambudkar told Nemiroff that from the start, McIver advocated for Sam’s husband to be played by a person of color. “She had seen me rap at the Oscars, and Rose and my wife had worked together in New Zealand on Power Rangers, so they knew each other. And she was meant to come to my baby shower for our second. And because of COVID, she wasn’t able to make it,” he explained. “But she was like, ‘Dude, you should probably do this TV show with me.'” He went on to explain that while he “thought it was really cute and very, very funny, a great concept,” at the time he was working on “moving my career in a direction more towards film.” Ambudkar then revealed:
“So I said no to Ghosts initially. And every two weeks, three weeks, month, I mean multiple times Rose would hit me up like, ‘Dude, you gotta do it. Bro, where are you? You gotta do it.’ And in the meantime, I saw her performance in a show called Woke with Lamorne Morris, a dear friend of ours. And she’s so good on that show. She’s so effortlessly charming, that woman. I mean, I’ve worked with her now for four years. I see it every day. But at the time, I mean, yes, I still am in awe of it. But I was blown away the first time I saw her work.
And so finally like pandemic, pandemic, pandemic, COVID, COVID, COVID. And I’m like, ‘I think I blew it on ghosts. I think we should go back and ask them for another chance.’ And so we did and this is months later, and they hadn’t cast it yet. […] And Rose and I did a quick chemistry read for the bigwigs and the rest is history. But she lovingly badgered me to take that role. She was not gonna take no for an answer. And so she was a huge part of that.”
How Rose McIver Brought Out a Softer Side of Utkarsh Ambudkar’s Jay on ‘Ghosts’
Nemiroff went on to ask Ambudkar how his dynamic with McIver helped shape Jay from his pre-series idea of the character to the big sweetheart we see on screen every week. He told Collider that initially he, “thought Jay was going to be a lot more sarcastic and a lot more like sardonic, more cynical, dry, which I think he is to a certain degree.” He continued, saying:
“But Sam has, as Rose plays her, turned Jay into much more of a dreamer. He’s way more unconditionally loving. He’s a lot more curious and silly. You know, there’s a certain Joey Tribbiani aspect to him where he can get really kind of like giddy, which I did not see happening. He’s a lot lighter than I thought he would be. I thought a lot of the humor from Jay would come from dead pan, and it’s almost the opposite. He’s like a very animated guy.”
Jay and the rest of the Ghosts will return in Season 5 this fall. Until then, you can watch Ambudkar’s full episode of Collider Forces below and stream Seasons 1-4 on Paramount+.
