Kelsey Grammer Reveals Why David Hyde Pierce Is Not Returning To ‘Frasier’ Sequel Series
24.11.2022 - 04:21
/ deadline.com
Kelsey Grammer is opening up about David Hyde Pierce’s decision not to return to the upcoming Frasier revival series on Paramount+. Hyde Pierce played Grammer’s titular Frasier Crane’s younger brother on the Emmy-winning Cheers spinoff series.
“David basically decided he wasn’t really interested in repeating the performance of Niles,” Grammer told People in an interview.
After Frasier, Hyde Pierce went on to successful theater career and most recently starred in the HBO Max series Julia.
Grammer said Hyde Pierce’s decision not to return actually has worked out well in terms of the new series’ storyline.
“In a very funny way, it just took us to a new place, which was what we originally wanted to do, anyway, which was a Frasier third act,” Grammer told People in the interview. “It’s an entirely new life for him.”
Hyde Pierce previously told Vulture it’s not a given that he would return to the revival series.
“That whole time of my life, the writing on those shows, the actors I got to work with — all of that is deeply important to me. And I would never disrespect that in such a way as to say just offhandedly, ‘Oh, no, thanks. I’m not going to do that again.’ It’s too valuable to me,” he told Vulture. “But by the same token, because it’s so valuable to me, I also wouldn’t do it just do it. And I believe it can be done without me, too — finding new stories to tell, in the same way that Frasier did after Cheers. They didn’t bring along the Cheers gang to make a new show. They popped in from time to time and that was a blast, but there was something else that needed to be said, and it needed to be said in a different way. And maybe they will find that and I’ll be in it, or maybe they’ll find it and they won’t need me to be