“The key to Frasier for me was that he loved her with his whole heart,” Grammer said of Diane Chambers.
Kelsey Grammer may not be too keen to lean on his old Cheers days for his new Frasier sitcom, but there’s one character in particular for whom he’d make an exception.
Speaking with Kelly Clarkson on her daytime chatfest, Grammer admitted he “would like to see Diane come back,” referring to Shelley Long’s pompous intellectual turned waitress turned writer.
The character of Frasier Crane was first introduced in the third season of Cheers as a romantic interest for Long’s Diane Chambers, who had previously broken up with Ted Danson’s Sam Malone. Grammer feels it only fair that Frasier deserves a chance to “put something to bed” with Diane and “end up with a nice thing between them.”
“When I first got the role, the key to Frasier for me was that he loved her with his whole heart, that he loved with all of his being. And that actually defined who he is,” the 68-year-old actor said. “He’s been that way ever since. He just goes in wholeheartedly with everything — and that’s what makes him funny.”
Long made two appearances on the original Frasier as part of dream sequences, and an appearance in the flesh in the season three episode, “The Show Where Diane Comes Back,” where she’s working on an unflattering (to Frasier) play based on their Cheers days.
When Grammer spoke to EW a few months back, he resisted the idea of too overt a tie-in to Cheers, despite the Frasier revival being set in Boston, where everybody once knew his name.
“I don’t think it would be right for us to go back to the bar,” the Emmy-winner said at the time. “I think we made reference to the bar, and it is not what it once was, and most of those characters would’ve moved on.”
Past characters from Frasier have poked their heads in from time to time, however. Bebe Neuwirth reprised her role as Frasier’s ex-wife/mortal enemy Dr. Lilith Sternin and Peri Gilpin returned as bestie Roz Doyle in the season finale.
“It was a fantasy come true to play that part again and to go back into that world,” Gilpin told EW, adding that she would be open to returning in a regular role, “if that’s a possibility.”
Frasier has yet to be renewed for a second season on Paramount+, but by the sounds of it, there are a few ideas — and potential guest stars — already in mind.
