Grammer, 69, looks back on decades of playing the good doctor and is extremely grateful for Frasier’s talent, calling him “an endlessly fascinating character” who comes to him “as naturally as breathing.” Frasier, created by brothers Glen and Les Charles, serves as a “great mouthpiece” for Grammer’s imagination, he says.
“I’m constantly engaged with this character and find it’s a great outlet for me to live my life fully and creatively,” Grammer told the Globe in a recent Zoom interview. “I know that laughter can heal, a good cry can heal, and a lot of people have come up to me and said, ‘Gosh, you’ve helped me through some tough times’ – and that’s very gratifying.”
The character was originally named Frasier Nye, which reminded Grammer of comedian Louis Nye. He asked the creators to give him a more “old world, New England” surname, which led them to the surname Crane. “I guess maybe from Ichabod Crane, I don’t know exactly,” Grammer muses.
“That was the birth of it and they gave me this extraordinary gift because I was able to put my imagination into this character and be protected from the truth of who I am all these years,” he added. “Something I realized a long time ago was that if you’re an actor and you’re lucky, you can tell the truth your whole life and never be reprimanded for it.”
Grammer describes his first appearance as Frasier in “Cheers” as a kind of “hit-and-run comedy.” He was rarely the focus of the action, but “often just snuck in, made his points, got a laugh, and disappeared.”
“He was more of a comic relief act, just coming in like a court jester, hitting you out of the park and disappearing from the bar,” Grammer explained. “It was very effective and great and wonderful, and then it started to grow.”
While the romance between Frasier and Diane was relatively short-lived (fans may remember Long’s character leaving him standing at the altar during their European wedding), Grammer’s role in the series became more important as the character developed. Frasier was given a more prominent place at the bar and became “a more important member of this family,” while his own family grew with the introduction of his strict, soon-to-be ex-wife Lilith Sternin, played by the legendary Bebe Neuwirth. The couple had a son, Freddy, who is now grown and played by actor and Harvard graduate Jack Cutmore-Scott in the Paramount+ reboot.
When the idea for a spin-off series came up toward the end of Cheers, it was a conscious decision by the show’s executives to take Frasier “as far away from his old life” as possible. They sent him to the character’s hometown of Seattle.
“We just drove across the country as far as we could,” Grammer said. “We left Boston behind.”
In addition to a new town, fans would meet new family members and friends in Frasier’s orbit, including his cantankerous father Martin (John Mahoney), a former police officer, his brother and fellow psychiatrist Niles (David Hyde Pierce), and English housekeeper and later sister-in-law Daphne (Jane Leeves). But one of the most popular characters from the “Frasier” spinoff was Roz, played by Peri Gilpin, the producer of the radio show Frasier hosts.
From the beginning, Gilpin felt comfortable working with Grammer and the show’s crew, in part because she had experience working with many of them when she played a different character in an episode of “Cheers” last season. Gilpin met Grammer on the set of “Cheers” and described the atmosphere at the time as “chaotic” but “so fun.” She recalled cast and crew members throwing spit balls at her and star Kirstie Alley whisking her away for a long lunch.
“I didn’t care, I loved it,” said Gilpin, who reprises her role as Roz in the revival of “Frasier.”
When Grammer suggested she audition for a role on “Frasier,” she had already auditioned for it. Gilpin admits she was a little nervous about taking part in the spin-off, but that all melted away once she started working with Grammer, particularly during her scene from the show’s first episode, in which Roz delivers a long monologue about the infamous death of ’40s actress Lupe Vélez.
“I had to tell him this long story, and I knew it really well, and I remember how attentively he listened,” Gilpin said. “When you’re an actor, that’s the key to success. Everything you need to know about the other actor you’re working with depends on whether they’re listening to you. And he listened to every word, and we had a great scene.”
As for Grammer, the first “Frasier” series represents a significant evolution for the character, who becomes the center of his own world while simultaneously relying on others for the laughs.
“He had to change,” Grammer said. “He had to allow other people to be funny. Frasier was still a funny character, but he was the fundamental character.”
The actor points out that there is a third act for the character that fans don’t get to see on screen. It’s a time in Frasier’s life when he runs away to Chicago with his lover from the spin-off’s final season, Charlotte (Laura Linney), and has a successful “Dr. Phil”-style TV series. When viewers see Frasier again in the reboot, Charlotte is long gone, as is his TV series. Frasier, now a professor at Harvard, wants to rekindle his relationship with his son Freddy in Boston.
“This fourth version is a man who is more comfortable in his own skin, who is a little wiser and takes some things less seriously,” Grammer says of Frasier’s current state. “He’s a man with not as frivolous preferences as he once had, but with good taste, and he’s committed to living a good life.”
Grammer describes the character as “pound-note-like”, pompous, but also “a little more stable”, “not quite as impulsive” and on the way to becoming “a man of character and quality”.
“Now he’s sorting out his relationship with his son,” Grammer said. “He’s sorting out his relationship with his father, even though he’s now dead, and what it means to be the survivor, the orphan that he is now.”
Frasier and Freddy clash in the reboot’s first season, but their relationship blossoms in the second season. They are “in a much more stable position,” says Cutmore-Scott.
“From the beginning, Kelsey has been an incredible support,” said Cutmore-Scott. “He’s a very, very collaborative actor and director. He doesn’t micromanage in any way. He doesn’t interfere so much with our performances. He just helps us make it ‘Frasier.'”
Returning to Boston was not originally the plan for the reboot, but the decision came into focus when it became clear that Pierce and the other previous cast members would not be able to return.
“I really had a dream,” Grammer said. “I just said, ‘Oh, Frasier has to go back to Boston.’ There’s unfinished business. And suddenly a lot of possibilities opened up for exploration that had been closed to us.”
He added: “Boston was the best place for him to return to, even though he didn’t quite become the man he wanted to be there, but can be now. It’s his destiny.”
Given that fans still love Frasier 40 years later, Cutmore-Scott noted that this is a little surprising because “this character is fundamentally not supposed to be likable.”
“He’s kind of cocky, he has extremely strong opinions,” Cutmore-Scott said. “He tends to do exactly the wrong thing, say the wrong thing, and yet we love him. And that’s because of Kelsey.”
“That’s why it’s lasted so long, that’s why the character has such a special place in people’s hearts,” he added. “It’s because you kind of want to hate him, but you can’t. He’s so likable.”
Grammer says he is grateful that fans have remained loyal to the character and quotes Gregory Peck to express his hopes for Frasier’s legacy.
“He once said, ‘I’d like to believe that anyone who sees my work or has gone to one of my movies or seen me do this or that will consider it time well spent,'” Grammer said. “And that’s what he wants people to think about Frasier. Whenever they spent time with Frasier, it was time well spent.”
“Frasier” is now streaming on Paramount+.
You can reach Matt Juul at [email protected].
