Kelsey Grammer exemplified the pickiness of his sitcom character Frasier Crane by almost blocking his co-star from being cast in the series.
Jane Leeves, 65, played Mancunian live-in caregiver Daphne Moon on the hit Cheers spin-off, but she very nearly lost the role because Grammer didn’t want the character to be British.
The actor, who hails from Ilford, Essex, made it through to auditions, and when Grammer heard her accent, he was concerned it would be too similar to Mary Poppins-lite series Nanny and the Professor, which aired in the 1970s.
“I got Frasier in a really weird way,” Leeves recalled in a new interview with Still Hot in Cleveland podcast.
“My agent said to me, ‘There’s some interest in you for this spinoff from Cheers.’ And I loved Cheers. I went in to read for the producers. Cynthia Nixon was in the room, she went in before me. I went in, I read for the producers.
“They said, ‘Hold on a second. Could you just wait outside?’ And I went outside, then Jeff Greenberg, the casting director, came out and he said, ‘Would you be able to come in tomorrow to read with Kelsey?’”
The following day, Leeves returned – but things appeared to go suddenly south when Grammer arrived. “He marched in and they called me in and we were about to go in the room to read with the producers and Kelsey went, ‘Nope.’ Told the producer to stay outside, because he didn’t want an English girl. He thought it would be Nanny and the Professor.”
However, the producers insisted that Leeves read with Grammer, 71, who was won over by her audition.
“I was sitting outside and then Kelsey came out, ran off, jumped in his Corvette, and they called me back into the room and they said, ‘Welcome to the show.’” The Independent has contacted Grammer for comment.
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Frasier – a spin-off focused on his Cheers character – originally aired for 11 seasons between 1993 and 2004, and won 37 Primetime Emmys.
A reboot premiered in 2023 and returned for a second season the following year before getting axed by Paramount+. It received generally lacklustre reviews from critics.
David Hyde Pierce, who played Frasier’s younger brother Niles in the series, did not return for the revival, much to the disappointment of Frasier fans.
“David basically decided he wasn’t really interested in repeating the performance of Niles,” Grammer said at the time.
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Hyde Pierce explained: “It’s not like I said, ‘Oh, I don’t ever want to do that again.’ I loved every moment. It was that I wanted to do other things.”
Hyde Pierce said that other work commitments, including the US series Julia, confirmed his decision, stating: “When we got into real talks about the reboot, I had just started on Julia and was working on a musical and going to do another musical. I just thought, ‘I don’t want to be committed to a show and not be able to do stuff like this.’”
He also said he thought “they don’t actually need me” as “Frasier has moved on to a new world”.
“They have new characters. And I think I’m right. It’s doing great. And the new people they have are great.”