Interview: Ghosts’ Rose McIver Previews Finale’s Cursed B&B Opening, Shares Her Pick for Which Spirit Should Possess Sam

Source | The big day has finally arrived for Ghosts‘ livings: Sam and Jay are welcoming their first B&B guests in this Thursday’s season finale (CBS, 9/8c). But unfortunately for the couple, the long-awaited event is met with obstacle after obstacle, and Thorfinn may to be blame after he reveals that he enacted a Norse curse to prevent the B&B from becoming a reality.

“Anything that’s had that much expectation for that long is very high pressure,” Rose McIver, who stars as Sam, says of Woodstone B&B’s grand opening. “Sam is somebody who puts a lot of pressure on herself in general, too. So the stakes are basically very high. There will be a curse to contend with. It’s certainly not going to be a simple day. But her and Jay make a great team, and they weather what they can together. I’m hopeful that one way or another, they’re going to get this damn B&B open, and it’s going to be a success.”

Below, McIver previews Sam and the ghosts’ tender finale moment, talks about her character’s She’s All That moment and reveals the one thing she really doesn’t miss about her previous gig on iZombie.

TVLINE | How do Sam and Jay feel about the fact that it’s one of the ghosts, someone that’s become like a friend to Sam, that is jeopardizing this big endeavor for them?
Well, it’s interesting that the seeds were planted before they were actually friends. So this is kind of like them having to deal with the mess of things that have happened in the past, and I don’t think Thorfinn would do that to them again now, obviously. But this is kind of like how life works: You sort of don’t have a straightforward trajectory and skeletons in the closet rear their heads, and this is a really nasty one.

TVLINE | Sam’s relationship with all the ghosts has really evolved over the season. How does this episode reflect that?
Sam has always seen the ghosts or has come to see the ghosts as a mixed blessing. It can be incredibly exhausting and challenging, and she has to spin so many plates at any given moment. Jay has to exhibit an unbelievable amount of trust. But it is a really telling thing that when it comes to this episode, where we learn that everything’s at stake… it’s been enough of a special thing for her that she doesn’t know she wants to lose it and that the risk of losing this new family that she has discovered is really frightening and upsetting to her. We’ve set the scene that Sam didn’t have a necessarily very solid family life of her own growing up, and the ghosts have really become that for her and Jay.

TVLINE | Do you have a favorite scene from this episode that you can tease?
The scene in the kitchen where all the ghosts come together and we realize what’s at stake. That was a scene that when we filmed it was a really deeply emotional scene on set. This has been such a strange past couple of years for everybody. We had all been looking forward to filming this series for so long and then we were up there making it, and at the time that we filmed the scene in the kitchen… it was right around the time we were wrapping up this big, long season where we feel like we’ve kind of built a family with the other actors we’re working with and all the collaborators in Montreal, the cast and crew. We all felt quite vulnerable, and so it was very special. It was quite a tender scene to film, just knowing that it felt like that was all on the line at the time.

TVLINE | How was it to film the She’s All That homage in the prom episode?
It was so sweet. We filmed that in winter in Montreal. It’s heading into winter, so we’re all kind of robed up in 15,000 coats and jackets and boots, and we will shuffle into the studio. And then when Jay and I got to kind of peel back and have some nice dressy clothes on for a change, it was really special. And I think everybody kind of felt that prom feeling about it. The reveal of the coming down the stairs felt sort of awkward and organic. Jay showing up at the door, looking so handsome and having made such an effort, it really makes me believe in them as a couple even more, watching that episode.

TVLINE | Was the song “Kiss Me” actually playing when you filmed the scene, or was that added later in post?
So we did it once with the song and then we did it without just so that we can get clear dialogue. But yeah, we did play the song one of the walks down the stairs, and it was really helpful in setting the scene. Rachael Leigh Cook has torn strips off us, publicly, which makes me laugh a lot, saying for us to get our own material. [Laughs] She knows Utkarsh [Ambudkar] in real life. So we had a good laugh about that.

TVLINE | Do you have a favorite episode from Season 1?
My favorite episodes would be the prom episode and probably, in a funny way, the Halloween episode. I thought it was such a clever way of subverting the idea of Halloween and just another one of the many ways [showrunners Joe Port and Joe Wiseman] surprise us. We might have thought that the ghosts would be behind such an idea or they would feel represented on a day like that, and for them all to be so mortally offended, I just thought was such a good angle to take on it all. And I like dressing up as a Stepbrother, and I think it’s something we should return to in the seasons to come.

TVLINE | Speaking of dressing up, a lot of your castmates are in these very specific costumes, and they have these very distinct personas. It’s something that you used to do on a weekly basis on iZombie.
You had no idea how little I miss that part of iZombie! [Laughs] On Ghosts, I roll in and clip in a couple of hair extensions and I roll up to set. It’s so easy in comparison. I really feel for all of the ghosts and the amount of time that they have to be in hair and makeup and costume. I feel like I did my years of that, and I’m not unhappy to sacrifice that this time around. The only thing that I do think was really useful about it and that I can see kind of happens to the ghosts when they get into costume is when you have [a] look for your character that’s that iconic, it really does a little of the work in helping you step into who that person is on any given day. The way that the costume holds your body changes. I’m thinking of Rebecca Wisocky, who plays Hetty, as an example… So I do think that part of it is very useful, but I certainly don’t miss taking off that wig at the end of the day and unwrapping my hair. [Laughs]

TVLINE | You had an episode where Jay got possessed. Who would you like to see possess Sam?
Such a good question. One thing I would actually like to do is play Hetty in a flashback. Not to be possessed by her like Jay was, but to actually play my own ancestor or a relative of hers back then. I think that would be a cool way to play with the flashback sequences, and we are relatives, so it kind of makes sense. If I was going to be possessed, I’m going to [say] Thorfinn, but I’m going to need vocal cord surgery immediately afterwards.