CBS Fall Comedy ‘Ghosts’ Casts Indian American Actor Utkarsh Ambudkar in Lead Role

Indian American actor Utkarsh Ambudkar attends New York Comic Con in support of “Free Guy” at the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center on Oct. 3, 2019 in New York City. (Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images for Twentieth Century Fox)

India-West Staff Reporter

Utkarsh Ambudkar, who has been cast in a recurring role in Indian American actress/producer Mindy Kaling’s coming-of-day comedy on Netflix, “Never Have I Ever,” will be playing the lead role in a new CBS comedy.

The Indian American actor plays a starring role alongside Rose McIver in “Ghosts,” a new comedy arriving on CBS in the fall.

The single-camera comedy is about Samantha (McIver) and Jay (Ambudkar), a cheerful freelance journalist and up-and-coming chef from the city, respectively, who throw both caution and money to the wind when they decide to convert a huge rundown country estate they inherited into a bed and breakfast — only to find it’s inhabited by the many spirits of deceased residents who now call it home.

The departed souls are a close-knit, eclectic group that includes a saucy Prohibition-era lounge singer, a pompous 1700’s militiaman, a ‘60s hippie fond of hallucinogens, an overly upbeat ‘80s scout troop leader, a cod-obsessed Viking explorer from 1009, a slick ‘90s finance bro, a sarcastic and witty native from the 1500s, and a society woman and wife of an 1800’s robber baron who is Samantha’s ancestor, to name a few, according to the synopsis.

If the spirits were anxious about the commotion a renovation and B&B will create in their home, it’s nothing compared to when they realize Samantha is the first live person who can see and hear them, it said.

Joe Port and Joe Wiseman, Mathew Baynton, Jim Howick, Simon Farnaby, Laurence Rickard, Ben Willbond and Martha Howe-Douglas; Alison Carpenter, Debra Hayward, and Alison Owen (Monumental Television); and Angie Stephenson (BBC Studios) are the executive producers for CBS Studios in association with Lionsgate Television and BBC Studios’ Los Angeles production arm.

Ambudkar, whose freestyle rap at the 92nd annual Academy Awards turned heads in Hollywood, has long been a part of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s (“Hamilton”) improvisational hip-hop group called Freestyle Love Supreme.

“We Are Freestyle Love Supreme,” a new film chronicling the group’s journey, is available to stream on Hulu.