Kelsey Grammer has never really been able to shake his signature character, but he is OK with that. “It’s wonderful to spend your lifetime entertaining people,” he said. Photo / Caroline Tompkins, The New York Times
The actor has been playing the snobby psychiatrist off and on since 1984 and has no plans to stop. He thinks the current Frasier reboot “could last another decade.”
Kelsey Grammer likes his raw meat cut very fine. On a recent afternoon, at the restaurant of a midtown hotel, he requested that his steak tartare be put through the grinder twice. He wanted it, he said, like velvet. The tartare, topped with its quail egg, was presented roughly chopped. “I’ll deal with it,” Grammer said uncomplainingly.
Frasier Crane would never. On and off for 40 years on several different sitcoms, Grammer, 69, has played Frasier, a dyed-in-the-cashmere-wool snob and psychiatrist about town. The character is indelibly associated with Grammer. He can’t shake him, though Grammer mostly sees this as a boon.
“It’s wonderful to spend your lifetime entertaining people,” he said.
In 1984, Grammer, a stage actor who had studied at Juilliard, was cast on the sitcom Cheers as Frasier Crane, a love interest for Shelley Long’s waitress character, Diane Chambers. He stayed with the show until it ended in 1993.
That year, Grammer starred in a spinoff, Frasier, which saw the character move from Boston back to Seattle, where he lived with his father (John Mahoney) and frequently sparred with his brother (David Hyde Pierce). Grammer was often a tabloid fixture in those days, with an erratic personal life. Much married, he would eventually father seven children with four different women. He was arrested for drug possession and for driving under the influence. He now believes his chaotic behaviour was a response to the trauma of his early life – in separate incidents, both his father and his sister were murdered.
But he stuck with the show until the 2004 finale. After that, Grammer moved on to other projects, but none lasted very long. And then in 2023, a Frasier reboot returned Frasier to Boston, reuniting him with his son, Freddy (Jack Cutmore-Scott), and his best friend, Alan (Nicholas Lyndhurst). The second season premiered in September.
In person, Grammer was startlingly tan, with bright white teeth and milky blue eyes. He wore a burgundy blazer in a subtle check. His mood was placid, upbeat, the attitude of a man who has spent much of his life in some proximity to an Applause sign. As he dabbed Worcestershire sauce on his chunky tartare, he discussed his character and career. (He also plugged his beer brand, Faith American. “It tastes like meritocracy,” he said.) These are edited excerpts from the conversation.
Q: When you were offered Cheers, you were a serious theatre actor. Was a sitcom the goal?
A: I was a snob about being a theatre actor. I wanted to stay doing Shakespeare.
Q: But you took it.
A: It meant an elevated lifestyle. And it was something I loved doing. It’s live theatre, but with TV cameras. There’s nothing quite like that audience interaction, that fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants energy. I’ve grown addicted to that. And I have been able to bring all of creation into Frasier’s realm, from Shakespeare to slapstick comedy.
Q: How close did this character – a snob, a man who enjoys the finer things in life – feel to you?
A: I grew up on the East Coast. I went to prep school. So it wasn’t that far out of my range. I just made him believable. I played him as though he were in love with Diane, in love for the first time in his life, deeply, for real. The key to this guy is that he loves with his whole heart.
Q: Why was the idea of Frasier, a Cheers spinoff, appealing?
A: It was not a spinoff at first. It was going to be something else. David Angell, Peter Casey and David Lee set out to do something different. I was a bit of a wild man, and we thought it would be fun if we capitalised more on that. We set up a situation where a character ran a business empire from his hospital bed because he was in a very severe motorcycle accident. We wrote the pilot. I went to dinner with John Pike, who was the president of Paramount Network Television. We ordered appetisers and I said, “What do you think?” He said, “I think sitcoms should be funny.” Then John said, “I want you to play Frasier.” I said, “OK, I’ll be Frasier.”
Q: You had some rough years while you were doing Frasier. Did work centre you?
A: I refer to that period, my dissipation, in my life now as going through a very powerful healing. I’ve come out the other end with a great sense of appreciation for it, because I’ve always wanted to be a person who lived to the fullest. The work at the time, it saved me, because I had to show up for it. There were days when I did not show up, for sure, but most days I thought, I have to go to work. So I functioned.
Q: The character was a huge part of your life for 20 years. How did it feel when Frasier ended?
A: It was fine to let Frasier go. I did some other things.
Q: But none of those projects really landed.
A: That’s why actors are afraid of television. Frasier is the indelible watermark of what I’ve done. I have nothing to cavil at, but you fear it’s going to be the end of your career. We think we’re never going to act again. It’s one of the conditions of being in the business. But it’s OK to get a great TV show, and it’s all right to make money. I have nothing to regret about that.
Q: Why reprise Frasier?
A: Because I knew I could. I wanted to do that kind of work again where I could bring great writers in and have great fun. And Frasier was always a substantive show about things that mattered, things of the heart – a relationship between two brothers and a character who finds a way to get through every day, no matter how hard it is. These are virtuous people and they’re funny. Going back was as simple as falling off a log.
Q: What has changed now that Frasier is primarily a father and a friend, not a son and brother?
A: He’s looking after people. He’s teaching. He’s reconnecting with his son in a way that he never had a chance to.
Q: Has Frasier’s move from son to father made you think about your own life, your own legacy?
A: It really hasn’t. But coming back to Frasier has put a nice bow on it all.
Q: So you still think of yourself as the child?
A: That doesn’t go away. Years ago, I had a Corvette I was driving out of the lot. And Kenny Lamkin, who was our [cinematographer] on the show, he said, “Kelsey, what do you want to be when you grow up?” And I said, “6.”
Q: How would you want Frasier to end?
A: In the last show, I want to quote Tennyson, Ulysses: “To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” That’s the way I want it to end, with a sense that there is still a beginning, an unknown, a place to go.
Q: You’re a Republican in Hollywood, a generally very liberal place. Has that affected your career?
A: For me to be anything else would be a problem. I don’t go along with a lot of what is preached in Hollywood. I go along with what is preached in Christianity. I go along with do unto others as you would have others do unto you. And I believe in all people: I believe in their desires and their lives and their worth. I want to make shows about that. I don’t want to hate anybody.
Q: What do you want to do next?
A: To remain relevant. I think this show could last another decade. And I want to be a good father. I have wonderful kids. I’m still working on a relationship with my older kids; I missed some chances there. With the younger ones, I’m in their lives and I’m sticking with it.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Written by: Alexis Soloski
Photographs by: Caroline Tompkins
©2024 THE NEW YORK TIMES
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