‘Frasier’ Star Shares Revival Progress, Celebrates Reuniting With Co-Star in ‘Julia’

Frasier star David Hyde Pierce shared another update on the series’ planned revival, which is moving along at a glacial pace. In a new interview with Deadline, Pierce said he has not even spoken with co-star Kelsey Grammer “in a while,” but he believes the Frasier project is still in the works. Pierce now stars as Julia Child’s husband Paul Cushing Child in HBO Max’s Julia, which also features his Frasier co-star Bebe Neuwirth as cookbook editor Avis DeVoto.

“I don’t know where they stand,” Pierce told Deadline when asked about Frasier’s progress. “I haven’t talked to Kelsey in a while. The last time I talked to him, I knew that it was a work in progress, and I think it still is in the works.”

Pierce starred as the persnickety Dr. Niles Crane, Dr. Frasier Crane’s younger brother, in all 11 seasons of Frasier. He won four Emmys for his performance. Neuwirth played Frasier’s ex-wife, Dr. Lilith Sternin, who was introduced in Cheers. Neuwirth won two Emmys for playing the character.

“We’ve always had fun, right from the first day of Frasier, and that was 11 years because she was on the show every year for 11 years,” Pierce told Deadline of acting alongside Newirth again. He considers her an “old friend,” as the two have run across each other in the theater world. “We just share a lot of experience, a lot of life, a lot of common vocabulary and understanding,” Pierce said. “So, it’s very comfortable working with her, and I just adore her.”

In the 18 years since Frasier ended, Pierce hasn’t done much thinking about the characters as he moved onto other projects, he said. However, Pierce would never refuse to do a Frasier revival because the script could take Niles, Frasier, and the other characters in an interesting direction.

“It’s about how their story is told because I care a lot about those people, those actors,” he explained. “This is how I always pick my projects, now that I have the luxury of picking them: I take them because I have to. That’s what happened with Julia. I read this script and I thought, I have to do this part. I want to explore this person and explore this relationship. And so, if I were to see a script of a Frasier reboot that I had to do, I would do it.”

Grammer has been talking about making new Frasier episodes for years, leading to Paramount+ officially announcing a revival in March 2021. At one point, Grammer told Collider the show would be released in the first quarter of 2022, but the first quarter has come and gone with no new Frasier. At the time, he said most of his co-stars would be returning. “We have a story to tell – that can actually be told with or without them, honestly – but I want them back because that’s what I always dreamed of,” he said. “I thought we should explore all their lives in their third act, and so that is my hope.”