Ghosts’ Rose McIver Doesn’t Get Many Chances To Improvise – Looper

Rose McIver is no stranger to the supernatural. McIver was briefly an avatar for Xena, a character everyone forgets she played on “Xena: Warrior Princess,” and she was featured on “iZombie.” Shooting “Ghosts,” however, requires a different approach. 

Seeing as Samantha is the only living person who can see and interact with the spirits, lots of the scenes in CBS’ sitcom had to be shot twice: once with the ghosts in frame and once without them. This requires a lot of attention to detail on the part of the crew and actors, who need to make sure every single aspect of a scene remains the same for the second take. 

In a recent interview, McIver described the show as a “very technical project,” where she needs to stick to the script and promptly react to her co-stars’ on-screen actions, even those that weren’t planned by the writers. She also shed some light on the process and how it differs from other sitcoms in which actors have a lot of space to improvise. 

“The group around me improvises a lot,” McIver said to Variety. “I don’t quite so much on this project. A lot of what I’m doing is [being] a portal to them. I’m providing a portal for the audience, but when we have to bring those elements in … we’re starting to understand each other.”