‘Ghosts’ Star Rose McIver on Channeling a Sassy Spirit in the Ambitious Christmas Double Episode, and Her Upcoming Series Directing Debut

variety.com:

Michael Schneider Variety Editor at Large There’s a moment in Thursday night’s Christmas-themed “Ghosts” two-parter where the body of Rose McIver’s character, Sam, is suddenly inhabited by sassy downstairs cholera spirit Nancy (Betsy Sodaro). “Ghosts” requires its stars to participate in all sorts of hijinks on a weekly basis — and in this case, McIver was tasked with imitating Sodaro as Nancy. “I adore Betsy so much,” McIver tells Variety. “I adore her as a person, as a performer.

I’m a huge fan. So I felt very honored that I got to channel a little Nancy, and she was predictably so generous to work with.” McIver says Sodaro helped her prepare by sharing videos to teach how to play Nancy as a loud-mouthed, inappropriate, over-the-top ghost. “She put these videos down of her saying her dialog and showing me how she would behave,” McIver says. “She was like, ‘I feel like I’m auditioning to play myself.

This doesn’t feel quite right,’ And then on set, she was able to go behind the monitors and throw some ideas out as well. It was a great character to get to step into.

She built something so funny and so specific that there were nice tangible things to hang my work on.” In “A Very Arondekar Christmas” parts 1 and 2, Jay’s parents Mahesh (Bernard White) and Champa (Sakina Jaffrey) visit the B&B for the first time, and they’re not impressed.