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Brandon Scott Jones on CBS' ‘Ghosts': ‘I enjoy playing characters that are desperate'
Surprise! CBS' Ghosts is quite a revolutionary endeavor, especially for a sitcom on a broadcast network. A big part of that is thanks to costar Brandon Scott Jones, who plays the ephemeral, late Isaac Higgintoot — a soldier who fought on the side of the American Continental Congress in the Revolutionary War.
Now, Isaac wasn't a big fan of war — he preferred surrendering post-battle — and actually met his end not by a barrage of buckshot, but due to dysentery. Still, Isaac isn't only revolutionary thanks to his character: He's possibly one of the first American military men to adhere to the "don't ask, don't tell" policy of being gay in the U.S. armed forces.
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"In his brain he was so jazzed to be at the beginning of America, and he's not even realizing that some of the stuff he's doing is working against who he is as a person," Jones tells Gold Derby (watch the full interview above). "There's something subversive about that."
Like the other ghosts who populate the New York manor in the series (which was recently renewed for a fifth and sixth season) Isaac has some issues to work through before he can finish the death process. But he has a habit of getting in his own way — like when at the end of Season 3 he left the dear, departed redcoat he loved, Nigel (John Hartman), at the altar.
"I enjoy playing characters that are desperate, and he is a desperate man who wants to be liked, he wants to be remembered, he wants all these things, and he's trapped in this world where he has to live with his legacy," says Jones. But, he adds, "I think there's something fun about him wanting to be a better person. He's a very slow learner, but he's realizing that he has to make some adjustments and changes."
That meant in Season 4 that he literally was in his lowest place – dragged under the dirt by ghostly Puritan Patience (Mary Holland). "He's slowly finding little moments and opportunities to be a good person," explains Jones. "And then he has all these trials and tribulations where he, like, freaks out because the stripper he's in love with dies on the property."
The stripper, for context, is not Nigel!
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There are other ways Ghosts pushes the envelope in revolutionary ways, particularly with some of its out there colloquialisms. Ghosts who complete their duties on earth and are taken away are said to be "sucked off," something that might not have made it onto broadcast TV in previous decades.
The wording gets Jones chuckling. "Can you believe it?" he says. "We get 'jerked off,' we get 'sucked off,' we get 'go down on us,' like, that's the stuff. It's wild what they can get away with! How lucky are we that we get to do it?"
But perhaps the thing that Jones finds most original about the series is that thanks to his character and Nigel's, there's finally a bit of American history being shared in a broadly-watched TV series.
"What do we as a collective people recognize to be true about that time period?" Jones asks. "Where does the Revolutionary War stand in pop culture and the Zeitgeist? As I've been playing the part, I've slowly been learning more and more [about history], which has been really fun."
While Isaac may be Jones' longest-played character, he's far from the Maryland-born actor's first role. Jones performed with the Upright Citizens Brigade and co-wrote and starred in the 2022 film Senior Year. Audiences may also recognize him from his roles in The Good Place and The Other Two, and he's often cast as snooty, snarky, sassy — or all three.
"I'm always interested in playing more that side of things," he says. "It's a fun way to access that part of me that … exists. We all have a little clap-back in ourselves, right? You get to have catharsis on camera and get paid for it."
Meanwhile, Jones is working on several non-Ghosts projects that he can't talk about just yet — but he does have one new major element of his life he's happy to discuss: He's now a homeowner. And he's stressed out about it.
"Oh, my God, I'm so nervous to become an adult," he says. "I still feel like Kevin McAllister [from Home Alone] every time I go to the grocery store? I'm like, 'What am I doing?' … 'God, these plants!'"
Just wait until he finds out whether his new home has any ghosts.
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