Interview
Culture
S&U interviews
4 min read

Kelsey Grammer is back in the building

As vintage comedy Frasier reboots, Kelsey Grammer talks with Krish Kandiah about his comeback and the significance of another recent role in Jesus Revolution.

Krish is a social entrepreneur partnering across civil society, faith communities, government and philanthropy. He founded The Sanctuary Foundation.

A group sit in a lounge playing musical instruments while the man closest to the camera laughs.
Kelsey Grammer plays Pastor Chuck Smith in Jesus Revolution.
Lionsgate.

Staying up late on a Friday night to watch Cheers was one of the regular highlights of my childhood. My parents were as bewitched as I was with the sonorous voice of Kelsey Grammer. Indeed, the whole world loved it. His spin-off sitcom Frasier went on to run for 11 years, winning 37 Emmy awards, a feat only recently surpassed by Game of Thrones. Grammer himself became one of the most decorated, well-loved – and well-paid - actors in the world. 

Nearly 20 years after its final episode Frasier is being rebooted. This time it is returning to Boston, the place where everybody came to know Dr Frasier Crane’s name. I, like many, are jubilant, convinced that the warm, masterful and often farcical humour will resonate just as well with a new audience. But what about Grammer? How does he feel about putting on the jester’s motley and playing Dr Crane again? 

“He's fantastic.”, Grammer explains to me with a broad smile and clear enthusiasm. I find myself wanting to tell him everything that’s keeping me awake at night.  

“Whatever it is about this journey with Frasier: he's lived a kind of a parallel life with me. Now we've found our way back to one another.” 

Grammer seems to be as excited as I am about the comedy comeback, but has Dr Frasier Crane changed over the decades? He explains: 

“He's a little wiser, a little calmer about some things. He's still a bit of a nuts on others. But the growth of the last 20 years or so in his life is reflected, I think, in this performance now.” 

Sometimes our greatest triumphs are accompanied by our lowest moments. At the same time that Frasier was first showering Grammer with fame, fortune and critical acclaim, he was wading through personal trauma. Substance abuse, addiction, and divorces resulted. I had to ask Grammer if he was a stronger person this time around:  

“I came to this one differently. I came to this one prepared to enjoy it. The previous manifestation of Frasier was a little bit much maybe a little bit too soon. It was challenging at times.” 

Grammer’s personal journey fascinates me. He seems to have resolved the sense of emptiness that so often accompanies great success.  Perhaps a clue can be found in the film Grammer is in London to promote. Jesus Revolution is based on a true story from the 60s and centres on a small church in Florida which gets invaded by hippies.  Grammer plays the role of Chuck Smith, the pastor who is torn between two very different congregations.  

“He spoke to my sense of good. People finding themselves, finding their way forward and not giving up, not relenting. I loved his search and his courage in the face of a waning congregation and the challenge of trying to make God relevant in that time.” 

Time magazine covers from the 60s and 70s.

Two Time magazine covers beside each other. One reads 'Is God dead?' The other 'Jesus Revolution'.

The film illustrates this challenge by bookending two editions of Time magazine. At the start of the film Grammer waves a 1966 cover at his sparse, stiff congregation. It is jet-black and asks pointedly “Is God Dead?” By the end of the film Grammer, surrounded by a crowd of unlikely long-haired worshippers, is clutching a Time Magazine from 1971, this time featuring on its cover a psychedelic picture of a bearded Christ proclaiming “The Jesus Revolution”.   

Grammer’s character experiences his own personal Jesus revolution in the movie. He welcomes those long-haired bare-footed hippies into his home, his church, and his life, and as he begins to see the world – and God - through their eyes, he becomes a kinder, braver and happier person.  

This is what I see in the Hollywood superstar I am interviewing: someone willing not only to talk openly about his faith, but to actively promote it. He is a man on a mission as he tells me: 

"You can defend and champion and be an activist for a sort of alternate lifestyle or any number of things that you think are important. I applaud that. But it's also okay to applaud and champion the idea that a life of faith has equal value…” 

Grammer, now wistful and warmer, adds: 

"I just thought, I want to do something that has value, meaning, you know, other than just making people laugh." 

Grammer grew up in a family of faith, but that family was also torn apart by heartbreak. His father was brutally murdered when he was just 13 years old. Seven years later his sister was abducted, raped, stabbed and left to die in a trailer park. I ask Grammer bluntly how he can have faith in God after such horrors and suffering: 

“Well, I've been wrestling with it my whole life, since the early days of when tragedy first came knocking at the door… And I spent a long time looking around, you know, thinking, what the heck happened? Very recently, I stood on a baseball field at one of the harvest revivals and I just said, “Where were you?”. He said, “I was right there.” 

Grammer has found a way to make sense of his life, a way to deal with trauma and tragedy. Like Chuck Smith making room for the outcasts, like Dr Frasier Crane making time to listen to troubled people on the radio, Grammer could be a new sort of pastor for a new generation.   

“I think people are walking around with broken hearts. I hope they have a chance to say: ‘Well, maybe, maybe this faith thing isn't so bad.’”  

Maybe he’s right. For a man that has experienced more than his fair share of personal tragedy, I have the feeling that he knows what he’s talking about. I came away feeling moved by his continuing faith in God despite everything he has suffered and despite everything he has struggled with. I hope audiences will see something of that authenticity and challenge in Jesus Revolution.  

 

Jesus Revolution is on UK and Irish cinema release. Tickets are available now.

Article
Culture
Death & life
Politics
3 min read

Is a funeral the right backdrop for diplomacy?

Where there's an unavoidable collision between the universal and the individual.

Jamie is Vicar of St Michael's Chester Square, London.

Trump and Zelensky sit and face each other.
Ukrainian Presidential Press Service.

There’s an episode of Yes, Prime Minister where a state funeral provides an opportunity for negotiations with the French over the Channel. As ever, this particular satire has aged well. Most of the coverage of Pope Francis’ requiem mass has focused on either the ‘spectacle’ or the chance for world leaders to connect. It's tempting to think that the main stage of St Peter's Basilica was actually a sideshow to the fringe events of politicians carving up the world. With all the planning and confections that go into usual geopolitical summits, Vatican City has provided a spectacular impromptu backdrop. 

As an Anglican priest, I have mixed feelings about this. All the photos world leaders have been pushing out seem not a million miles away from the shocking taste of selfies in front of an open casket (any casket, for that matter). On the other hand, when there’s matters of life and death to discuss, there’s no better venue than a funeral. 

Of course, this presupposes that leaders have the presence of mind to acknowledge the dead body before them (not 'passed away'), rather than simply going through the motions and thinking about the photo op. But the cogs of death cannot be avoided. 

Tim Hamer, writing for the Lowy Institute, says, ‘bitter rivals can acknowledge the rituals of mortality.’ Some of the figures about leaders attending recent funerals are staggering. Pope Francis' funeral was no different. Along with those Francis prioritised - those pushed to the margins - there was also a critical 'mass' of those at the very centre of society. There were 170 delegations, including 50 heads of state, 15 heads of government and 12 reigning monarchs. Emeritus Professor of International Relations at the University of Leicester, Geoff R. Berridge writes that: 

 “Because death is always with us … there is little doubt that the working funeral is now the most important ceremonial occasion in the world diplomatic system”.   

Therefore, the off chance of bilateral diplomacy must be taken to its full advantage. 

It is precisely because, while the bodies are lowered, funerals elevate us out of the everyday, the 24 hour news cycle and the doomscrolling, that they provide us with an opportunity to connect with what really matters. Less than 24 hours before he died, the pope delivered the words on Easter Sunday: 'Christ is risen! These words capture the whole meaning of our existence, for we were not made for death but for life… God created us for life and wants the human family to rise again!' As our multilateral world order falters, the human family just might be able to rise again when the powers-that-be meet at a funeral.  

We will have to wait and see if there is any fruit from the geopolitical meetings that have taken place. We can live in hope. If world leaders learnt any lessons from the enigmatic late pontiff, they would see that he was like Teflon to the political labels people tried to pin on him. You get the impression that he was aiming for something more lasting than soundbites, quick wins and popularity. 

I would also add that funerals are for the living. Once we've brushed aside any theological quibbles over the efficacy of praying for the dead, funerals are there to help us to grieve. They help us to process loss, which is why the 'mortal remains' remain. The ancient declarations, the homily, the breaking of bread and pouring of wine, yes even the theatrics help us to situate our own lives on a world stage where we are both bit parts as well as worthy of the undivided attention of many onlookers.  

In a world where geopolitics threatens to depersonalise and dehumanise countless millions of people, funerals unavoidably collide the universal with the individual. The context of worship and thanksgiving also lifts us out of the orbital pull of the ephemera of nation-states and our own lives to discover the possibility of revolving around Someone far grander and steadfast. Just like conducting diplomacy, there's no better place to consider death than a funeral. 

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