When CBS viewers tune in for Thursday’s new episode of “Ghosts” this week, a familiar name will show up twice in the credits: Utkarsh Ambudkar.
The actor behind Jay Arondekar is stepping behind the camera for his directorial debut with Season 5, Episode 15, entitled “Michael Jackson Goes to HR.” Ahead of the episode’s premiere, Ambudkar opened up to TheWrap about the entire filming process — from actually getting to interact with his co-stars for once to forgetting his own lines while pulling double duty.
“I think everyone, honestly, was surprised that I was not bad. Devan [Chandler Long], who plays Thorfinn, was like, ‘I thought it was going to be a s—tshow, and it turned out OK.’ High praise,” he shared with a laugh. “Everybody was a little cautious, given my proclivity for sort of taking the piss out of everything, being a bit of a jokester and a prankster. But yeah, they were pleasantly surprised. I set the bar very low.”
“The thing that I forgot to do was to prepare as an actor. It helps to learn your lines if you’re also going to be acting in the scenes you’re directing, and on Day 1, I forgot to do that. It didn’t even cross my mind,” Ambudkar added. “Jay’s got this huge monologue, which your boy neglected to learn. So I’m sitting there just like, ‘Oh, my god. I forgot to do half my job.’ Our First AD Matt James looks at me and he’s laughing hysterically. God bless him for laughing. Those are the kinds of people I love to work with, folks who see the humor in what other people might construe as a nerve-wracking moment. They were just able to take the piss out of me. I memorized it immediately, because that’s what shame does for me.”
“I think it was a little weird for them. I’m that guy who plays pranks; I lock people out of their dressing rooms. All of a sudden, I’m over here giving some thoughts on the scene. I think it was a little disarming at first, but we’ve built a family in Montreal and after so many years, we understand each other’s micro-moods. Everyone knew I was nervous and really eager to succeed, and I wanted to do my best by them, so I was given a lot of grace and a lot of support and love. That was invaluable,” he continued. “It’s nothing I’ve experienced before. I don’t know how it happened, but we got very lucky. So it was awkward, and then it wasn’t.”
Ambudkar’s episode also notably comes just a month after co-star Rose McIver’s second stint as director (Season 5, Episode 13 & Season 4, Episode 13). So what inspired the longtime actor to follow in Sam’s footsteps and try his hand at directing?
“Last season, it started to creep in as something that I wanted to experience. I create a lot of my own content and write and want to self-produce projects, so the question that I was getting in a lot of rooms was, ‘Would you be interested in directing this?’ And the answer was, ‘I’ve never directed, but I’d love to try,’ which is not something an executive wants to hear before they give you X amount of money to do something,” he explained. “I figured it would be in my best interest to learn the trade at a high level, if I could see if I was capable of executing in a way that made me and my family and my peers and certainly my employers happy. I saw Rose McIver, our erstwhile leader, direct last season — and while Rose and I work very, very differently — her approach and the way that the crew and cast supported her was really inspiring. So, I knew that this show in particular was my opportunity to work and fail in a safe space.”
And after spending years on set with projects like “Pitch Perfect,” “The Mindy Project,” “Never Have I Ever” and SXSW psychological thriller “Sender,” Ambudkar revealed what he learned as a first-time actor-turned-director.
“What you are privy to as a director is the ever-changing alchemy of a script. Our writers and our writers’ room will come up with what they feel confident is a solid A story and B story, and then you sort of watch them shift and move,” he said. “This showed me how flexible you have to be as a director — and as every department head … that openness to creativity and flexibility, always making sure that muscle is saying ‘Yes and,’ is really the inside baseball.”
The man behind “Spaceman: A Love Story” also told TheWrap why he thinks his CBS sitcom with Brandon Scott Jones, Danielle Pinnock, Richie Moriarty, Asher Grodman, Sheila Carrasco, Rebecca Wisocky and Román Zaragoza is such a fan-favorite.
“People fell in love with us at the right time. We provided a solace and safe place, certainly a happy, joyful, fun place post-pandemic, where the entire family who hadn’t been allowed to be together could sit on the couch and watch something. Everyone gets to enjoy it, they get to laugh at it, nobody feels like they’re being talked down to, nobody feels like they’re missing out on a joke,” Ambudkar shared. “It is a real weird family comedy, so I’m happy that it’s the people’s show. We get overlooked every year for these hoity-toity awards, but our numbers show that our love quotient far exceeds anyone else’s. I’m proud of that.”
So will we be seeing more of his directing skills in the already-renewed Season 6?
“I would love to. The short answer is: Please, God, yes; the longer answer is: I promise I’ll do better, I’ll get even more donuts for the crew,” Ambudkar joked. “[Co-showrunners] Joe Port, Joe Wiseman, CBS, Amy Reisenbach, George Cheeks, all my homies — who I call boss, thank you very much. You’re not my homies, you my are my employers, and I love you dearly — they gave me a chance and I’m really, really grateful for it. I was able to have a lot of fun and still deliver an episode that hits all the notes that we know and love from a normal episode of ‘Ghosts.’”
“Ghosts” airs Thursdays on CBS and streams the next day on Paramount+.
