“Ghostfellas,” the latest episode of the CBS comedy series Ghosts, marks the directorial debut of the show’s leading lady, Rose McIver. A career goal many years in the making, McIver’s turn behind the camera was fantastic, as she and the rest of the cast and crew delivered a laugh-out-loud funny episode with twists galore.
I sat down with McIver recently to discuss her episode and, as a big fan of cast-helmed episodes, I had to ask if she’d given any of her co-stars the directing bug. “Yes. Thank you. Great question,” said McIver. “A lot of my costars, some of them [are] wanting to direct and some of them [are] just wanting to shadow, at least initially, to understand more about the process.”
McIver went on to explain what a wonderful learning experience directing can be for an actor, saying:
“I can’t speak highly enough about the value for an actor of understanding the immense amount of work that goes into making an episode of television, from people whose names you don’t know. People figuring out the location availability, and doing the accounts, and checking the copyright on the way that a ticket is printed and the just enormous mound of work that has already been built before we arrive on set and we pick up our lines. It’s a real feat.
And it’s awesome to be able to connect with those people. I think it makes actors better. It makes actors more communicative and understanding of why things may look a certain way at the moment that they arrive on set. And I think the same for the post-production process. So, you know, seeing in the edit what works, what doesn’t, how choices that you make do or don’t impact the overall rhythm of a scene. I think that it’s a valuable thing for people to do.”
