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As we meet on set to discuss his role as Chinese miner Joon in 1850s Ghosts Australiait suddenly dawns on actor George Zhao.

“The last two roles I played were both gold mine roles. I’m only now realizing this!” he laughs.

They were on the ABC comedy Gold diggers And Young for Monkey Baa Theater. Now he is the ghost without pants who prefers to get lucky with local convict girls.

“A lot of the information I learned from one role translates to another role,” he continues.

“I had to learn a lot about goldfields, how they traveled and how they got to Australia. The Chinese were heavily taxed, so how they got by was they didn’t land at the ports where they were supposed to be taxed. They landed very far away somewhere else and walked to the goldfields, which would sometimes take weeks, months.”

Zhao, who played a role The family law, the secrets she keeps, Jack Irish And Homecoming queensis of Chinese descent but born in New Zealand.

“I’m a Kiwi who moved here when I was young. A little boy with a Kiwi accent and knew how to do the Haka. Now I don’t have that accent anymore and I don’t know how to do the Haka anymore!”

In the dysfunctional share house of GhostsJoon is looking for his lost gold when ‘breathers’ Kate (Tamala) and Sean (Rowan Witt) enter the scene. There are culture clashes everywhere.

“There is feeling in it Ghosts where you actually want to see the differences line up because they are ghosts from different eras. So they will be culturally very different, in how they see the world, how they behave. But how do they ensure that this works in a house they cannot leave? And I think that’s a real selling point because we have such a rich history of different cultures,” he suggests.

“Joon is a gold digger who came to Australia with his brother and found himself staying a little too long, much longer than he expected. But he fell in love with Australia when he first came, and then wanted to stay, and a series of events forced him to stay.

“Before we started, they took me to the Perth Mint where I was able to see how gold was made. I mean, you can Google and research things, but they won’t send you a gold bar because they’ll never get it back. I learned so much, and now my Instagram algorithm is just prospecting for gold and mining for gold.”

Zhao is coy when it comes to spoilers surrounding his character’s death and whether he will be “sucked away” and eventually move on to his next place.

But he does share some character work that makes sense when you see it on screen.

“I do a lot of animal work, so I based my character on a cat. The way Joon moves, how he interacts with people, comes from those kind of foundations. As a cat, he walks around the house, looking for things… he might move into another room. He might say hello. He might jump on your lap and then get out. I feel like that’s the way he moves around the house. How he interacts with the Ghosts looks a lot like that too. He is wide-eyed (and curious),” he explains.

“There’s a cultural shame that Joon feels that he’s hiding from, and he feels like once he gets what he’s looking for, he can be freed from that shame.”

Ghosts Australia is based on the original UK Ghostswhich subsequently spawned other international versions including Ghosts USA

“Before I started this production, I looked at Britain Ghosts. I loved it. There is a real sense of heart and soul in Britain Ghostswhich I think our Ghosts also has. The cast really loves each other,” says Zhao.

“It’s about how Ghosts deal with certain situations. I think this is where Sean and Kate, who are of the living, bring a modern worldview and a lot of modern technology into the home. A lot of new things that they wouldn’t necessarily have experienced.

“So it’s how they experience that, how they experience changing ideals. It’s a really good show to take a look at time, different worldviews, ideals and politics.”

Ghosts Australia screens Sundays at 8:10pm on 10 and is available on Paramount+.