From Universal Home Entertainment/Everett Collection. “It was seeded in that movement in American history where everybody’s got, ‘We can do bigger, we can go better, we can find paradise.’” Naturally, Grammer would play George Donner: “It’s my way of doing a Western,” he says. “Maybe we’ll sell it to The Weather Channel,” he says-and he’s serious. While in Margaretville, he focuses on scripts currently in development, like a 10-part history of the Donner Party. He helped oversee both Medium and Girlfriends, as well as The Game, a Girlfriends spinoff. That rhythm allows Grammer to concentrate partially on his second career as a producer. The idea of leaving his rural compound is “devastating”: “What happens here is after the first week or so, you settle in to a different kind of rhythm,” he explains in the car, steering while maintaining startlingly good eye contact. (He and his wife, Katye, also have a home in Los Angeles their third place, an apartment in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, is currently on the market for $9.75 million).
Grammer has had a home base in Margaretville-“such a redneck place,” he says fondly-for the past 20 years. There’s two roles there’s these two guys”-Luke Skywalker and Han Solo-“that come kind of rescue a princess in space.’” During a meeting with George Lucas, Grammer remembers, “He said, ‘Yeah we’re looking for a young guy, I don’t know, about your age.
A dubious honor, his Razzie doesn’t seem to bother him in the slightest: “I’ve never really allowed anyone else to tell me whether I’m good or not.” Incidentally, he claims that the best movie where he was passed over for a part was Star Wars. He was unable to attend the ceremony, but he’d very much like to get the statuette (even if “I thought I was pretty good in Transformers”). Grammer is plenty satisfied with his less critically-acclaimed roles he sounds genuinely pleased when he later ends a brief lull by interjecting, “Oh I won a Razzie!” The worst supporting actor award was announced on his 60th birthday, for his work in a quartet of 2014 films: The Expendables 3, Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return, Transformers 4: Age of Extinction, and Think Like a Man Too. (In Caine’s 2010 memoir, the English actor does indeed describe “one of the cardinal rules of bad movies” thusly: “if you’re going to do a bad movie, do it in a great location.”) This same selection process led Grammer to make Breaking the Bank, a straight-to-DVD comedy about an inept London banker as Grammer says, “This is not the best movie you’ll see this year, but you won’t see 10 that are better.” “Somebody told me, 20 years ago, that Michael Caine only picked movie scripts based on where it was going to be shot,” he says.
Really, though, the location sold Grammer on the role. It features Grammer and his baritone, the most recognizable this side of Morgan Freeman and James Earl Jones, as Blinky, a six-eyed troll guiding protagonist Jim on a supernatural quest.
Amazon has placed a full-season order for Grammer-starring The Last Tycoon weeks after he returns to that set in November, Netflix will debut the animated series Trollhunters. But rather than retiring to bask in residual goodwill and residual checks, Grammer has entered a fascinating new phase of his career this year, popping up seemingly everywhere: cameos on Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and in Neighbors 2, a voice role in Storks, and a turn in Nest 3D, a horror collaboration between China, Australia and spiders. Frasier Crane, the opera and caviar-loving psychiatrist-turned-radio host that propelled him to stardom on Cheers and then Frasier, the series that had more Emmy wins than any other until Game of Thrones stole its crown this year. Twelve years have passed since Grammer completed his beloved, two-decade tenure as Dr. As I reach out to knock on the correct door, it opens wide, revealing neither a maid nor an assistant, but Frasier Crane himself. His 500-acre property boasts six separate houses-all facing different directions and decorated with American flags. His name is Kelsey Grammer.ĭespite living in such a small town, Grammer is tricky to find. Yet at least one Margaretville resident maintains a tennis court, a pool and a farm. The Sunoco sells live bait, and it’s tough to get a meal or even a drink after 9 o’clock on a Sunday night. Nice to hear from you again, guys.Nestled in the Catskill Mountains, Margaretville, New York (population: 596) still boasts a video rental store and an eight-lane bowling alley.