Frasier, featuring Kelsey Grammer as Frasier Crane and David Hyde Pierce as his neurotic younger brother Niles, ran for 11 seasons from 1993 until 2004
(Picture: ES Composite)Kelsey Grammer has revealed the sad reason why David Hyde Pierce won’t be reprising his role as Niles in the upcoming Frasier reboot.
Last year it was confirmed that Grammer, 67, would be returning as Frasier Crane in a revival series of the Cheers spin-off for Paramount+.
While this delighted most fans of the hit sitcom which ran for 11 seasons from 1993 until 2004, not everyone was as enthused by the prospect.
Hyde Pierce, 63, played Frasier’s neurotic younger brother, but has decided to swerve the project.
“David basically decided he wasn’t really interested in repeating the performance of Niles,” Grammer told People .
While respecting his former co-star’s decision, Grammer said that, “in a funny way”, Hyde Pierce’s absence has worked out for the best as it took the writers “to a new place”, which happened to be “what we originally wanted to do”.
He described the reboot as “a Frasier third act”, which will showcase “an entirely new life for him”.
Hyde Pierce said earlier this year that the reboot was still going ahead, but wouldn’t confirm whether he would be involved.
Speaking to Vulture in June, he said: “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 off-handedly, ‘Oh, no, thanks. I’m not going to do that again.’ It’s too valuable to me.
“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.”
He did not rule out the idea of making a cameo in the series, recalling how Cheers stars would “pop in from time to time” in Frasier.
“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 in it,” he added in the Vulture interview.
