Utkarsh Ambudkar On Remaining the ‘Ghosts’ Biggest Cheerleader…Even Though He’s Never Met Them

It’s hard being the straight man sometimes. It’s harder, I imagine, to be the straight man when you are dealing with characters that you can’t see because they are ghosts. Now in its glorious third season CBS’ Ghosts manages to expand its world in innovative, inventive, and hilarious ways. It’s too bad that Utkarsh Ambudkar’s Jay can’t communicate with the residents of Woodstone, because he would have an absolute blast. Even thought he can’t see them, Jay has become the ghosts’ biggest cheerleader.

At the beginning of our conversation, Ambudkar and I talk about how thankful we are for Jay’s enthusiasm. Imagine if creators Joe Port and Joe Wiseman made Jay weirded out that his wife, Rose McIver’s Sam, could see the apparitions in their new digs. Rather than paint the character into a corner, they allow Jay to get excited for when they enter a room.

“Sometimes I think the character is hard to write for since he doesn’t know what’s going on ninety percent of the time,” Ambudkar says. “How do you create an active space for him? The restaurant, for Jay, was something he can busy himself with and taking the wall down between him and the ghosts a little bit. In season three, he accepts that he’s an active member of the group whether or not he can hear what’s going on. There’s a lot of comedy to be mined there. They also did me a solid by giving me a chance to act opposite Román [Zaragoza] when we discover that Sasappis is going into Jay’s dreams. I was happy to have some at-bats and have some swings. Acting with a ghost was so much more fun than you would expect it to be.”

Any time Jay whips out his handy dandy Ghost Notes, I can’t help but wonder what he has written down in the times that we don’t see him. Just how extensive are those notes by now…

“Sixty-eight hundred pages,” he says quickly. “Front and back. Actually, he’s using a heavy pen, so it bleeds through the pages. This is a D&D junkie. Jay is a guy who is used to world building, and it plays to all his strengths. I always ask the Joes to bring those ghost notes back as much as possible. I still want to know why the vault in the basement is the way that it is. There are so many unspoken rules with the ghosts that Jay can’t stop thinking about it. I personally think that Jay could help uncover the truth.”

As Jay and Sam get the property ready for Jay’s restaurant, obstacles pop up in the forms of an owl and a stubborn silent business partner. I still think Jay and Sam should consider the name Higgentoot’s–I’m just saying. I wondered, though, if Jay was starting to get nervous over his new, independent venture. Sometimes when you get so close to the thing you really want, you can feel aflutter.

“I don’t think Jay is scared, but you know the butterfly feeling you get when you are going in for a first kiss,” Ambudkar asks. “Or when you take a sip of cold lemonade on a hot day? It’s that feeling. He knows the menu is tight and he’s got the right ink and font. He got the right varnish on the tables and, this time, he remembered to leave the windows open so the fumes don’t get to him. He’s excited, man. The vibe is right.”

In season one, Rebecca Wisocky’s Hetty nabbed her chance at feeling alive when she possessed Jay, and Ambudkar should’ve received his first Emmy nomination for that episode. No one was possessed in season three, but Ambudkar has an idea of who he might like to take on if another ghost tried it. Jay does says, ‘I hope it’s Trevor…’ when he and Sam wonder who got sucked off.

“They’re all such unique characters, so I have to give this some thought,” he ponders. “Rose [McIver] did Thorfinn, so he’s out. Trevor would be the most fun, I think. That’s what the universe if giving me right now. Trevor is not Jay’s cup of tea, and, I gotta admit, guys like him were not that nice to me in high school. It would be fun to take on the Final Boss in my personal video game. I love how Sheila [Carrasco] embodies Flower with that physicality–she embodies that character so beautifully. Like when I was possessed by Hetty in season one, the lattice of the character was so clear that I can really look to their work to inform me. Sheila and Rebecca [Wisocky] gave their characters such distinct qualities. Sheila is such a badass. We went to college together and did shows together. I love everything she does.”

How does one have a bromance with someone they can’t see? Of all the relationships in Woodstone, the friendship between Jay and Richie Moriarty’s Pete might be the purest. If these gents existed on the same plane, Pete would be Jay’s go-to buddy, and Ambudkar reveals that him and Moriarty’s previous connection allows the fictitious one to flourish.

“Richie and I got so lucky, and it helps that we went to high school together,” Ambudkar says. “He was a senior when I was a freshman, and we went to all the same places when we were younger. When the show started, we were the only two with small children, so we have linked up together on the weird dad energy. It reminds me of having a Fortnight buddy. You may never see him or even what they look like but you are on the headset with a dude that you love. That’s very Pete and Jay.”

Ghosts is streaming now on Paramount+.