Brandon Scott Jones interview: ‘Ghosts’
(NOTE: THIS INTERVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS ABOUT THE SEASON 3 FINALE OF “GHOSTS.”)
Brandon Scott Jones appreciates the irony. Here he was, dying for the chance to have a regular job in television. He just didn’t know he would need to play a character who was actually dead to finally break through and make it happen. “Actually, it’s become a little pattern in my career,” Jones points out. “I was dead in my arc on ‘The Good Place’ and then I was dead and come back to life in the (2023 feature) ‘Renfield.’ And now, I’m dead on ‘Ghosts.’ I guess that’s something I should take a look at. People want me to be dead. I’m like, ‘Is this a problem?’.” It certainly isn’t a problem for Jones on “Ghosts,” where he has broken out over the CBS single-camera supernatural comedy’s three seasons portraying the pompous Revolutionary War Captain Isaac Higgintoot – a role that’s earned him a pair of Critics Choice Award nominations. Watch the exclusive video interview above.
“Ghosts” is adapted from the British series of the same name and stars Rose McIver and Utkarsh Ambudkar as Sam and Jay, a young couple who inherit a rundown mansion that’s co-inhabited by the spirits of those who died on the property throughout history. On May 2, the hit series wrapped its third season and has been renewed for a fourth next fall. In that finale, Isaac – who died from the effects of dysentery in 1777 – Isaac almost gets married to Nigel (John Hartman), whom he accidentally shot and killed way back when and with whom he is in love. But he spurns him at the altar in the Season 3 finale and does a disappearing act in a season-ending cliffhanger. “I think (Isaac is) getting a little bit of a comeuppance because he’s a messy dude,” Jones believes. “This is the first time he’s really paying the price for something.”
It was a fun “Ghosts” season and an exceptionally busy one for Jones, whose two favorite character storylines were spurning Nigel and discovering that dinosaurs are real midway through the campaign. “Isaac and his contemporaries had no idea that these huge monsters roamed the Earth,” Jones emphasizes. “He discovered that, ‘Oh my God, ‘Jurassic Park,’ those weren’t just monsters created for them. I thought that was a fantasy.’ That was the most fun.” On a more serious note, Jones also appreciated the Isaac backstory of having had to repress his true sexual orientation for a couple of centuries and holding onto the shame while being one of America’s Founding Fathers. “He was like, ‘Wait a second, I’m also part of this country, but this isn’t going to represent me correctly,’ and he was promoting an ideology that maybe necessarily wouldn’t have benefitted him,” he says. But then as he existed in purgatory, the world evolved.
Besides having the steady work and paycheck, the thing Jones cherishes the most about his “Ghosts” experience is that he and cast members he adores have an opportunity to spend so much time together while shooting the series up in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. “I’m not just talking about on the set, but even when we’re in-between takes because we have this little village of our dressing rooms and we can eat lunch together,” Jones observes. “On weekends, we’re the people that we hang out with. It really is this lovely thing to discover dynamics off-set that we want to explore later on. It’s so collaborative. It’s the thing I love the most, and what makes it work is it’s the thing that everybody else loves the most, too.”
Beyond that, after years of watching the friends he made as an improv performer with the Upright Citizens Brigade ensembles in Los Angeles and New York succeed and move on to great success, Jones has broken through himself. “It’s been one of the most satisfying things to see my friends that I got to perform with early on go on and have these wonderful careers,” he says. “In terms of myself, definitely some relief. I’m happy it worked out. I mean, how can I not be? It’s amazing. Getting to do what we do on the set of a sitcom is very, very cool.”
All three seasons of “Ghosts” from CBS stream on Paramount+.
