E-mail a friendKelsey Grammer
airdate May 12, 2008
Kelsey Grammer is known for his 20-year run as Dr. Fraser Crane on NBC's Cheers and the spin-off, Frasier. He's the first actor to receive multiple Emmy nods for the same role on three different series and has won the award six times. He's also a popular voiceover artist. Behind the camera, he's exec-produced several series, including CW's The Game and NBC's Medium. Grammer studied at Juilliard and began his career in regional theater. He stars in Fox's Back to You and is set to appear in the film, Swing Vote.
Kelsey Grammer
Tavis: Pleased to welcome Kelsey Grammer to this program. For those of us of a certain age, it's hard to remember a time when he was, like, not starring on a major prime time TV series dating back to his days, of course, on "Cheers," and then, of course, "Frasier."
Along the way he's earned five Emmy awards for his work and is the only actor in TV history -- I love this fact -- the only actor in TV history to earn multiple nominations for playing the same role in three different series. He's back in prime time with a new Fox series, "Back to You." The show airs Wednesday nights at 8:30. Here now, a scene from "Back to You."
[clip]
Tavis: So Frasier is a cool name, that's okay. But Chuck Darling?
Kelsey Grammer: Mm-hmm. (Laughter.)
Tavis: I love it.
Grammer: Oh, thank you. Thanks, man, thanks.
Tavis: I love Chuck Darling. Did you write that?
Grammer: No, actually, it's funny, they -- at first it was Chuck Tatham, who's actually one of the writers on our show.
Tavis: Right.
Grammer: And then they called me and said, "What do you think about this Chuck Darling for a name?" And I said, "I love it, because it's Peter Pan." The Darling children. And I thought that's perfect, because this guy refuses to grow up, so I think it's the actual right on the nose.
Tavis: I was teasing you during the clip, the playing of the clip. I think -- and of course I'm not Kelsey Grammer -- but I think that factoid about you is, like, the coolest.
Grammer: The three -- the three Emmy nominations?
Tavis: Yes. Is that cool for you?
Grammer: Yeah, well, it is kind of cool. It's sad that I never won any of them. (Laughter.) I finally won for "Frasier," but it was "Wings," "Cheers," and then "Frasier." Of course, I finally won on "Frasier," that was my first nomination for "Frasier," I won, but it was a little frustrating previously before that because I thought I was the greatest actor on television all that time. (Laughter.)
Tavis: What can't be frustrating, at least not for you -- for everybody else in this town, although not Kelsey Grammer, your run in prime time, everybody's talked about this, but I'm curious as to how you, how does Kelsey Grammer process the way you have been blessed with this extended run in prime time over the course of these series?
Grammer: The only thing I ever say is I should have done one more season of "Frasier." (Laughter.) So I could have won. I'm tied now for 20 -- 20 years with James Arness -- Matt Dillon.
Tavis: Right, Matt Dillon, yeah.
Grammer: No, you know what, I look on it as having been extremely fortunate. I also believe that you kind of make your own fortune in life and that you have your own whatever kind of relationship with a higher power that puts you in a certain place and allows you to prosper and to whom much is given, much will be expected or required, yeah.
And so I think that I have an obligation as a result of being so successful and so fortunate to give back as much as I can and to do for other people as much as I can, and I've tried to make sure my career runs in that way, and try to be a good dad. And I certainly went through my times, but the last decade or so has been pretty straight and narrow.
Tavis: The challenge for -- you said two things I want to go back and unpack right quick. One, the challenge for trying to transition, then, from a character that we've known you as for all these years to Chuck Darling, never mind my love of the name and the character, the challenge is what?
Grammer: Well, just to make him different enough for people to accept.
Tavis: But can you do that after all these years?
Grammer: It's a funny balancing act, because I think in a weird way the audience will not let you be so much different than they're comfortable with.
Tavis: Right.
Grammer: And so Chuck walks a fine line. We ran into some negativity about the first couple of episodes because he wasn't interested in being a father, he wasn't really interested in settling down with anybody, whereas Frasier was always vulnerable and open and sad and a little pathetic. Chuck's kind of a winner, even though he's sad and pathetic in his own way. (Laughter.)
Tavis: Back to your own formulation on this, what are the elements, the two or three elements that you now know that your fans have to see, because you've trained us this way in whatever character Kelsey Grammer plays?
Grammer: Yeah, it's a little bit like Jack Benny. One of the greatest things I ever heard, and I keep it with me always, is to always play up to your audience. I heard that in an interview on "Johnny Carson" with Jack Benny when I was 17 years old, and I thought that's something I would like to kind of stick with. And it guided me through the early days of "Frasier," on "Cheers," the fledgling character, I just thought, well, they had written a scene where Frasier and Diane, she had been his patient.
And I said, "You can't do that. This guy is a responsible psychiatrist, he's a man that has integrity, and that's going to be important to him." In that decision, it gave way to a lot of other comedy that happened as a result. The way we met then was Diane was playing a croquet game and Frasier happened along innocently and they got knocked out.
And I always thought that by making him a responsible psychiatrist -- in other words, playing up to the audience about who this character is -- you'd have a lot more room to explore what's wrong with him. And it turned out to be pretty reliable. So what they expect from me now is an intelligent comedy, one where the character doesn't lie unless he has to. Where the show doesn't lie --
Tavis: That's my life philosophy.
Grammer: Yeah, well --
Tavis: Don't lie unless you have to.
Grammer: Unless the greater good is served by a lie (laughter), we don't lie.
Tavis: Hear, hear. Hear, hear, yeah. (Laughter.)
Grammer: I think lying is a very vital art form in many venues. (Laughter.) But only when necessary.
Tavis: Especially in Hollywood.
Grammer: Yes, sir. (Laughter.)
Tavis: With regard to "Back to You," did the writer's strike interrupt the flow?
Grammer: Yeah, the strike -- it was a really bad time to start a show, with a strike. That's very difficult. It did give us some time to reflect on what we thought maybe we were doing wrong and what we thought we were doing right. We had some pressure to do the reveal about Chuck being the father of this child a little sooner as a result of it.
We were probably going to do it at the end of the season anyway, but there was no full season, so it seemed odd to suddenly in show six be doing oh, your father is Chuck. But for those who have watched the show, they'll understand what I'm talking about. (Laughter.)
Tavis: I'm following you.
Grammer: Meanwhile, I think it also gave us a chance, though, to reflect on what we thought was working and what wasn't working, and I do think the audience was a little alarmed by my seeming crassness as Chuck, the happily heterosexual, unattached Lothario, if you will. (Laughter.)
Tavis: I'm laughing, but I want to ask a serious question, which is I've had any number of people over the years complain about the fact that TV is structured in such a way now, the corporate pressure is so great now that you don't get time to find your legs on a show.
Grammer: Yeah, yeah.
Tavis: If you don't come out swinging --
Grammer: I think there's some truth to that.
Tavis: But you're getting some time, I guess.
Grammer: Well, we'll see. (Laughter.) They haven't renewed it yet.
Tavis: But you're back, you're back. Yeah, you're back though, yeah.
Grammer: But yeah, we came back at least this time around. The thing about a sitcom is you've seen every story. You really have. From "Cheers" to "Cosby" to "Seinfeld," you're not going to come up with a new story. The only thing that people are going to fall in love with are the characters, eventually, and the interplay.
And once they've had a chance to do that, they'll come back and watch it again. But you can't keep moving it around, you can't keep putting it on a different night, you can't say "Oh, it's on for five shows and then it's off for three months." All these things, of course, Fox has done. (Laughter.)
Tavis: All right, Kelsey, back to you now --
Grammer: Not that I'm ever quiet about it, but I think that the chief element in establishing a successful sitcom is actually to allow the audience to know where it is and keep it there, and let them fall in love with the characters.
Tavis: That's a powerful point, though, and I would expect no less brilliance from you, but I've never had anybody quite put it that way. That you've seen everything -- it's really about falling in love with the characters, and if you give people a chance to do that, you've got a chance at making it.
Grammer: Yeah, yeah.
Tavis: I want to go back before I let you go to one other thing you said, because you were so courageous to refer to it and I want to go back and grab it just for a second. How have you navigated these journeys, the difficult parts? From your personal life to that of your family, you've got (unintelligible).
Grammer: Yeah, I had some tough family stuff.
Tavis: Your father, your (unintelligible).
Grammer: You know what? There's a great line -- my favorite poet is W. H. Auden. There's a simple line of his, "Ordinary human unhappiness is life in its natural color."
Tavis: Say that again?
Grammer: "Ordinary human unhappiness is life in its natural color -- nothing to cavil of." Cavil -- complain about, whine about. I took some bad turns as a result of not being able to process some grief in my life, but God, love, my wife -- whatever the reasons are, whatever the ultimate cocktail was, I was finally given a chance to forgive myself for all the things that weren't my fault, and go forward with my life.
For at least a decade, I was on hold because of the grief that I felt for some of the losses that I'd had. I now can look back on some of those losses and celebrate the lives that I knew, the people I loved that are gone, and in that celebration, I honored them by living my life well. That's how I adjusted.
Tavis: Very well put, man.
Grammer: Thanks, man.
Tavis: And as if "Cheers" and "Frasier" and "Back to You" and everything else you've done hasn't kept you busy enough, I think I told -- yeah, I did. Thank you, first of all. You gave me a little check, I want to thank you for that.
Grammer: Oh, yeah. (Laughs.)
Tavis: I did a cameo on "The Game."
Grammer: Yeah, good, good. Yeah, it's a great show.
Tavis: So you got "Girlfriends" -- the "Girlfriends" run (unintelligible).
Grammer: "Girlfriends'" run ended this year, sadly.
Tavis: That was a great run, though.
Grammer: A little bit truncated because of the writer's strike. They just didn't finish the final episodes.
Tavis: You had a great run with that, though.
Grammer: Oh, fantastic.
Tavis: As producer and then "The Game."
Grammer: I was very proud of that show, too. Because a decade ago everybody was saying we got to get some more shows of color on the networks, but they didn't ever really seem to do anything about it. So I sat down and said, "Let's do this. Let's find some people, let's look at some writers." And a young lady named Karen that worked in my office brought in Mara Brock.
Tavis: Who I love to death, yeah.
Grammer: And we started kicking it around, and I thought yeah, let's go for it. So.
Tavis: So for those who don't watch the credits, they're like Kelsey -- Kelsey Grammer did "Girlfriends?"
Grammer: (Laughs.) Yeah, right.
Tavis: And "The Game?" You sleeping on Kelsey Grammer.
Grammer: There you go.
Tavis: Kelsey, good to see you, man.
Grammer: Thanks, man.
Tavis: Nice to have you here.
Grammer: Thank you so much.
Back to May 12, 2008