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Following the huge revival of Frasier in 2023, after nearly 20 years our screens, another star has now voiced their desire for their character to get a spin-off.
The original program was a spin-off from Cheers and focused on the stuffy psychiatrist (Kelsey Grammer) returning to Seattle and reconnecting with his dad, Martin Crane (John Mahoney) and equally picky brother, Niles (David Hyde Pierce).
It premiered in September, 1993, with Jane Leeves and Peri Gilpin also in the cast – the series ran for 11 seasons before Kelsey reprised his role in the Paramount+ reboot.
After Jean Smart revealed that she was very nearly handed her own spin-off for her character, Lana Gardner, Anders Keith shared that he would love to follow suit.
Speaking to Metro to celebrate the second season of the revival, he unpacked his role as David Crane in the current iteration, and comparisons to his onscreen parents, Niles and Daphne.
When asked if he would want a spin-off of his own one day, simply titled David, Keith jumped at the chance, telling us: ‘Sure! Yeah, why not? I’m not going to say no to that.
‘And I think there’s potential with the character, especially because, again, he’s a young guy, we haven’t really decided what he’s going to do. If he’s going to follow in uncle Frasier’s footsteps, in Niles’ footsteps, his mother’s footsteps – which I think could be interesting – his cousin… who knows?
‘There’s lots of paths he could take, and we don’t quite know that yet. I think it would be good.’
Touching on what more he would want to show of the character if he got the chance to return for a third season, Keith continued: ‘Well, obviously more physical comedy. I don’t think we’ve seen David experiment yet.
‘As a college student, you experiment with many things – maybe he joins a club, he tries a new hairstyle, tries growing a mustache, he goes to a party and realizes he’s in over his head. I think that would be fun to see some part of him at school.
‘Frasier has to come get him from a frat party, or something like that? It could be good. That’s more what I mean in terms of experiment, figure out life.’
Frasier made a huge return to the small screen last year with Grammer joined by an all-new cast, as well as cameos from some familiar faces – but Hyde Pierce and Leeves have declined to take part so far.
The second season premiered last month and the first episode saw Frasier and Alan gleefully celebrating ‘ham day’ with a very expensive jamon iberico that they had sent from Europe.
However, it didn’t go to plan as the best friends fought throughout their special day, while Eve and David went overboard in their efforts to set up the ‘ham day’ party, scoffing most of the dish themselves and ruining the rest.
As well as being hilarious, it gave Keith the opportunity to show off his physical comedy talents while absolutely destroying the prop meat – in typical farcical fashion.
His portrayal was met warmly by some viewers, who compared the scenes to Hyde Pierce in the original run – something that Keith was left ‘flattered’ over.
‘I’m extremely flattered,’ he said. ‘It’s nice company to be in. I haven’t seen any of that directly… My friends do a good enough job of reporting, “Oh, these people were saying this”.
‘I guess that’s what they were going for – and me too. Even though this is a new character, his character was the vehicle for a lot of the physical comedy in the original show. Yes, other people also did it, and I think in this show, other people could. I’m flattered that they let me do it.
‘They could have just said, “Oh, that’s too silly, or that’s too similar, it feels like we’re copying.”
‘Sitcoms, maybe it’s not an Oscar performance. You don’t win an Oscar in a sitcom. But a sitcom is an entirely separate language that allows you to do things that other things cannot, that Oscar-winning movies – at least right now – do not do.
‘Things like complicated physical comedy, things like characters maybe being jerks to each other, but they’re lovable, and you know they don’t mean it … Physical comedy is so tied to a sitcom, I just felt that we needed to do the original show right, and do all sitcoms right.’
Questioned about whether either Hyde Pierce or Leeves had reached out to him over playing their on-screen son, or watched any of the revival, he simply added: ‘I don’t know if they’ve watched it. I have spoken so…’
Frasier is available to stream on Paramount+ now.
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