Kelsey Grammer finding his inner beast

Kelsey Grammer compares the Beast character in X-Men: The Last Stand to Shakespeare's Othello.

Having played a shrink on TV for almost half his life, it is no surprise to learn Kelsey Grammer is a master of self-analysis. In a life marked by tragedy and bouts of self-destruction, he has emerged a grateful survivor.

"Life is supposed to get tough. It's how we deal with it that counts," says Grammer. Unspoken and hanging silently in the air are the ghosts in his past; the murders of his father Allen, in 1968, and sister Karen, in 1975, and the deaths of his two half-brothers in a 1980 shark-attack. Unable to deal with so much tragedy, he drowned his demons in the bottle, crashed his car, and, briefly, even served prison time before getting sober at the Betty Ford Clinic 10 years ago.

"Therapy helped enormously. If you don't reach beyond where you're comfortable, you will not grow. So that's my mission. To grow, to change, to become the best human I've been given the equipment to become," says the 51-year-old actor who first played Dr Frasier Crane on Cheers in 1984 and guest-starred as him on Wings in 1990 before resurrecting him in 1993 in Frasier.

When the time came for him to walk away from Frasier Crane, two years ago, he did so without any remorse. "I knew it was coming and I'd been preparing for it for a couple of years. I did Scrooge that summer, which was something fun and was like a departure. And then I basically took the next year and a half off and discovered that I liked retirement. I loved it. I mean, I never was really retiring - I'm still doing things," he says, alluding to his various behind-the-scenes endeavours, including his executive-producer role on the hit TV series Medium.

"And I have this new family and I have a beautiful bride and I have a life that's worth living," says the twice-divorced Grammer, whose 1997 marriage, to the former Playboy model Camille Donatacci, has proven third-time-lucky, sealing his happiness with two children through surrogate birth. "So, in regard to my private life, retiring Frasier Crane was an easy decision. And besides, 20 years on television is enough," he says.

His latest incarnation sees him draped from head to toe in blue fur, starring in the dual role of Dr Hank McCoy and Beast in X-Men: The Last Stand. Grammer had his doubts when approached to play another doctor - although any fears of typecasting were quelled the instant he donned the blue, furry, body-suit and latex prosthetics. Unrecognisable beneath the costume, only his distinctive resonant voice gives a clue to his former alter ego.

"For actors, it's all about playing dressup, I mean, isn't it?" he asks. "It's always fun to do that because that's who we are. I want to play dressup. I want to play cowboys and Indians. It's all the same thing - we're having fun.

"Dr McCoy is a chemical engineer. He, in fact, is responsible for his own demise in terms of his colouring and hair," explains the actor who also has a recurring speaking role as Sideshow Bob on The Simpsons. "Beast's super-power is mostly his brain. He's a thinker and his intellect is the most powerful thing he has working for him. He's also a great fighter and physically very agile. To me he's like Othello. He's powerful," he enunciates grandly, lest one forget his Shakespearean background.

"But more than that I thought of Frederick Douglass, the black American who was a great man of letters and of politics in the very early days of the American Revolution: extraordinary stature. And I felt that way about Beast. Stature and a towering intellect and clearly a physically different kind of person."

Putting things into perspective, X-Men: The Last Stand is little more than a big-budget special effects picture about cartoon superheroes. "I like working with costumes actually," admits Grammer. "To me it's the first thing that tells you what your character is. That's the way I always work, especially in theatre. When the costume shows up it's: 'Wow! Now I know what to do'."

But there'll likely never be any escape from his most famous creation. He was even recognised as Frasier Crane by Masai warriors, during a family holiday in East Africa. Asked what motivates him to continue working when Frasier has made him one of the richest actors in Hollywood, he says: "It's fun. The money isn't the motivation anymore. It's nice to be able to pay your bills but it's really more about trying to do something good."

- INDEPENDENT

* X-men: The Last Stand starts today.