David Hyde Pierce On Not Joining The ‘Frasier’ Reboot: “I Wanted To Do Other Things”

Lynette Rice
·2 min read
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Niles Crane, er, David Hyde Pierce is happy to explain why his beloved character won’t be showing up on the reboot of Frasier on Paramount+.

While promoting his appearance in “Here We Are,” the Stephen Sondheim/David Ives musical that’s being staged in Manhattan, Pierce revealed why he didn’t reprise the role that earned him four Emmys.

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“I never really wanted to go back,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “It’s not like I said, ‘Oh, I don’t ever want to do that again.’ I loved every moment. It was that I wanted to do other things. And when we got into real talks about the reboot, I had just started on the ‘Julia’ TV show and was working on a musical and going to do another musical, not this one. And I just thought, ‘I don’t want to be committed to a show and not be able to do stuff like this.’ And I also thought, ‘They don’t actually need me.’ Frasier has moved on to a new world. They have new characters. And I think I’m right. It’s doing great. And the new people they have are great.”

Pierce is playing the bishop in the musical that is based on two Luis Buñuel films. It was Sondheim’s final work and stars Rachel Bay Jones, Tracie Bennett, Bobby Cannavale, Denis O’Hare, Amber Gray, Steven Pasquale and Micaela Diamond.

The Frasier sequel series dropped October 12 on Paramount+. Kelsey Grammer returns to portray the titular character who has returned to Boston, where his grown son Freddy (Jack Cutmore-Scott) is a firefighter. Frasier is also embarking on a new chapter of his life back in his old stomping grounds with new challenges, new relationships to forge and an old dream or two to fulfill finally.

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