Hollywood legend, 79, reveals why he rejected offer to play Frasier Crane-Rishma Dosani-Entertainment – Metro

The cast of Cheers could have been very different… (Picture: Getty)

A Hollywood legend who turned down the role of Frasier Crane shared that he ‘can’t help but wonder’ about the path he didn’t take.

John Lithgow was initially offered the role of the stuffy psychiatrist before the character made his debut in Cheers, but ‘wasn’t interested’, with Kelsey Grammer eventually getting cast.

He was definitely a natural with the part and went on to land his own spin-off, simply titled Frasier, which ran for 11 seasons and returned for a revival last year.

In a new interview, John – who went on to star in Terms of Endearment, the Pelican Brief, the Manhattan Project, Raising Cain and many, many more – has reflected on the offer three decades on.

Speaking to Radio Times, the 79-year-old was asked whether he ever thinks about ‘what might have been’ when it comes to the acclaimed sitcom.

‘Sometimes,’ he replied. ‘When it came up, it was my early years in Hollywood, and I’d had two Oscar nominations in two years. There was this chance to play a supporting role on Cheers and my agent and I agreed, “Let’s not think about episodic TV.”

John Lithgow was originally offered the role of Frasier Crane (Picture: NBC)

He went on to appear in 3rd Rock From The Sun (Picture: NBC)

‘I can’t help but wonder about the road not travelled. But I have so few regrets. For one thing, I did do 3rd Rock from the Sun for six years, which was a glorious experience.’

John first appeared as Dick Solomon in 3rd Rock From The Sun in 1996, and remained for six seasons and 139 episodes.

He starred alongside Joseph Gorden-Levitt, Kristen Johnston, French Stewart, and Jane Curtin in the sitcom, which focused on extraterrestrials having to pose as a human family during an expedition to Earth.

Meanwhile, Kelsey propped up the dusty old bar in Cheers, with his character making his debut in 1984, before swapping Boston for Seattle in his 1993 spin-off.

Kelsey Grammer went on to land the ‘role he was destined to play’ (Picture: CBS)

Kelsey launched a revival of Frasier in 2023 (Picture: Getty)

In a chat with Metro, casting director Jeff Greenberg opened up about what led to the Simpsons favorite landing the role.

‘I do know that for the Frasier role, the prototype was John Lithgow and they offered it to him, but he wasn’t interested,’ he told us.

‘Then they auditioned some actors in New York, and Kelsey was one of the two actors that they flew out to audition and read, and got the role he was destined to play.’

And the rest was truly history – except Kelsey explained that he wasn’t exactly taken with the idea of appearing in Cheers at the very beginning.

Frasier became a bigger hit than Cheers (Picture: NBC)

Frasier ran for 11 seasons between 1993 – 2004 (Picture: NBC)

Appearing at a talk earlier this year, ahead of the second season premiere of the Frasier revival, he recalled a failed audition for Brothers, which led to casting director Gretchen Rennell reaching out with a mysterious offer.

‘She said, “There’s a new character coming on to Cheers.” I thought, what the hell is Cheers? She said, “It’s a television show that’s very popular right now. Sam and Diane are the characters,”‘ he said.

‘Maybe I saw this show? I think I might have seen the pilot when I was tending bar at O’Neill’s on 57th and 6th Avenue. I remember thinking, “What a terrible show. I would never want to be on something like that,”‘ he laughed.

‘She explained a little more about it, there was a requirement to keep it secret, like it was some kind of industrial espionage thing.

Kelsey laughed that he wasn’t totally sold on Cheers (Picture: NBC)

‘And I thought, this is very cool and clandestine, so I’ll keep my mouth shut. She called me in, I went on tape, I got a call.’

‘We read through the scenes, there were three scenes, and I didn’t get a single laugh…,’ he said of the audition. ‘I put the sides down the table, turned everybody and said, “I’m really glad I came. I’m going to go out on the street, see if I get some laughs out there.” And I left.’

It wasn’t until he returned to his hotel room a few days later that he realized he actually nailed the audition.

‘Sitting on the table was a bottle of Don Perignon, and it said, “Welcome to Cheers”. Which was a great moment in my life,’ he added, getting teary. ‘Of course, then I said: “Well, I’m going to have to fix the show, because it’s no good.”

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