Watch Kelsey Grammer and James Burrows Reflect on 40 Years of Making Sitcoms Together at IndieWire’s Consider This Event

Few characters have played larger roles in TV history than Dr. Frasier Crane, the Boston psychiatrist turned Seattle radio personality played by Kelsey Grammer on “Cheers” and two runs of “Frasier” (plus an episode of “Wings,” for those keeping track). Grammer’s latest turn as the character in the Paramount+ revival of “Frasier” was one of the biggest TV events of 2023, proving that Dr. Crane is just as relevant in the 2020s as he was in the ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s.

To celebrate the acclaimed revival, Grammer, showrunners Joe Cristalli and Chris Harris, director James Burrows, and production designer Glenda Rovello joined IndieWire’s Jim Hemphill for a panel discussion at IndieWire’s Consider This FYC Event. The collaborators discussed their long journey with Frasier Crane and why the character keeps drawing them back in.

“Mr. Grammer was 29 years old when he first played Frasier Crane, and he looked 80,” Burrows said to roaring laughter. “Now he’s 80, and he looks 29.” 

Burrows’ joke was underscored by the truth that audiences have had a chance to grow up alongside Frasier Crane over the 40 years that he’s spent gracing our TV screens. That growth made Cristalli and Harris realize that their revival would have to show a natural evolution of the character at a new point in his life.

“I loved the idea of exploring, what has happened to this character? How has he changed?” Harris said. “Sometimes a show will do a revival and everyone will be exactly where they were, down to the exact same sets. And with this we said, ‘Let’s treat him like a real human being.’ It would be weird if he was in the exact same position he was before.”

But while the revival was quick to embrace evolution, introducing a new cast of characters and moving the action away from Seattle and back to Boston, Grammer explained that it was important for the team not to lose sight of what made him special in the first place.

“‘Frasier’ just seemed like a natural thing to go back to because he was so alive and so interesting. As a character, he’s just so willing to get back up again,” Grammer said. “He was always knocked down, but always back in the game. That’s what I loved about him, and that’s what I still love about him. He’s still doing his best to love earnestly, to love deeply, and to live fully. And that hasn’t changed.”

The legacy of the original “Frasier” also loomed large over the design team. Rovello explained that the brilliance of Frasier’s original apartment set motivated her to deliver a new take on the wealthy psychiatrist’s residence that matched the attention to detail of his digs at the Elliot Bay Towers.

“It was very thoughtful, and down to the sofa and the coffee table, they were such incredible examples of what was happening with design then,” Rovello said. “Sitcoms before that didn’t look like that. They were really obvious homes, or obvious workplaces. And this one was supporting a character who really cared about design, who was sophisticated. So even though it’s been 30 years since that original set, it’s still the same character.”

The combination of old and new was made possible through a collaborative approach that Burrows has developed over the past half century of directing television.

“I like to think of it as rowing a lifeboat,” he said of his approach to directing sitcoms. “We all have oars, we’re all gonna row this lifeboat. Nobody is going to row with their ego, you’re gonna use an oar. You’re gonna try to make the show as funny as possible. Nobody is counting lines. You need to be part of an ensemble. Yes, we have a star, but we have a star who is also an ensemble player, which is so important.”

“I was just gonna assume in that metaphor, you’re in a lifeboat because the writers had sunk the ship,” Cristalli added with a laugh.

Watch the entire “Frasier” panel from IndieWire’s Consider This event above.