Scary season is here and CBS is welcoming it with Ghosts, a comedic-fantasy series featuring Sheila Carrasco and Román Zaragoza as recurring characters from the beyond.
Ghosts follows a struggling young couple, Samantha (Rose McIver) and Jay (Utkarsh Ambudkar), whose dreams come true when they inherit a beautiful country house, only to find it’s both falling apart and inhabited by many of the previous deceased residents. Based on the popular BBC series of the same title, the show is written by Joe Port and Joe Wiseman, who worked together on the Fox comedy series New Girl.
The series’s ensemble cast also includes Rebecca Wisocky, Brandon Scott Jones, Danielle Pinnock, Asher Grodman and Richie Moriarty.
From left, Asher Grodman as Trevor and Román Zaragoza as Sasappis in Ghosts. (Credit: CBS ©2021 CBS)
Carrasco plays Flower, a flower child who died in the late 1960s while attending a music festival on the property, while Sasappis Native American character from the 16th century.
“Rose and Utjarsh play an energetic, positive couple whom you really want to root for, and I play one of the deceased permanent residents,” Carrasco says drolly. “When I first read for the script, I started watching the British series, and I fell in love with it. All the ghosts died on the property in the last thousand years. It has a really fun Bill and Ted meets Beetlejuice vibe.”
Carrasco says she shot the series pilot while working in theatre during the pandemic. “I was in the midst of performing my solo comedy show, Anyone But Me, which was running virtually at IAMA Theatre in L.A. and at the same time I was playing a ghost on television,” she says, adding, “It was great.”
The peculiar death of Carrasco’s hippie character may seem far-fetched to some but not to the actress. “She wandered around the property, tripping on acid, and was attacked by a bear she was trying to befriend.” Carrasco shrugs, “It can happen. My family has been through a few harrowing experiences.”
Carrasco’s father is from Curacautín, a small rural town in the Araucanian region of southern Chile. After a chance meeting with Carrasco’s American mother in Temuco, reportedly without speaking a word of each other’s languages, they fell in love, married, and subsequently fled the overthrow in 1973, leaving everything behind, according to the actress from Chicago.
Carrasco is excited about not being the only actor with a Spanish surname in the cast. “He (Zaragoza) plays a Native American character from the 16th century, which is really cool,” she says. She notes that the actor’s mother is Taiwanese/American and his father a mix of Mexican-American and Native-American.
When asked what a 16th century Native American wears, Zaragoza laughs and says, “I’m not sure. My costume changed from the pilot to Episode 2.” He praised Wiseman and Port for valuing respectful representation over continuity. “It was a big part of what I really wanted to bring to this character,” Zaragoza states. “They brought in a consultant who helped them as well as our amazing costume designer, Carmen Ali, to change the costumes to be more accurate.”
The Manhattan-raised actor says he believes in the afterlife. “So yeah, I do a hundred percent,” Zaragoza shouts after a question from a reporter. “I’m Asian and Native American. I think the older we get, sometimes it’s harder to communicate with them. When we were young, like babies, you’re so close to that other world. I feel like when I was a kid, I could do that a hundred percent.” He claims he could see dead relatives when he was a child. “My parents said I would point to the corner of the room and say, ‘Hey, look, there’s Grandpa,’” he says. “Today, I find that scary. I don’t know about you, but if I was a parent and my kid said that, I would be terrified.”
Both Carrasco and Zaragoza have put in their dues to finally land in primetime television.
Carrasco grew up on the South Side of Chicago making home movies about her dogs and cats–not starring her pets, but featuring herself as her pets. A graduate of NYU and Harvard, she has performed diverse stuff at the American Repertory Theatre, Steppenwolf Garage, Court Theatre Chicago, Moscow Art Theatre, as well as comedy at the Groundlings. Other television credits include CBS’s The Odd Couple and Life in Pieces and YouTube Red’s Me & My Grandma. She also had a recurring role as Detective Dana Peruzzi on The CW’s Jane the Virgin.
For his part, Zaragoza began acting in 2010, making his debut in the television movie Everyday Kid. He has appeared in several short films including The Oblivious and You Could Be Happy. In 2016, he appeared alongside Maria Thayer in an episode of TruTV’s Those Who Can’t and three years later in Stumptown. His father, Gregory Zaragoza, and sisters, Danielle and Rayanna, are also actors. This year, Román produced a documentary short, This is Their Land, starring his father.
Ghosts airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET and 8: CT.
Featured Photo: Sheila Carrasco in Ghosts (Credit: CBS)
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