What happened to Niles Crane’s actor David Hyde Pierce after Frasier?

Although he had previously acted on stage and screen, most people were first introduced to David Hyde Pierce through his role as Niles Crane on the NBC sitcom “Frasier.” Pierce, in the long run, was the secret sauce that helped differentiate “Frasier” from “Cheers,” as Niles quickly became a fan favorite and was one half of the show’s long-running “will they/won’t they” romance, culminating in marriage and having a baby. A child between him and his father’s home health care worker, Daphne Moon. Aside from how audiences loved Pierce as Niles, the industry clearly did, too: He was nominated 11 times for the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor, winning four times, including the show’s final season in 2004. But on… Unlike Kelsey Grammer, keep playing. Plying his trade in the world of sitcoms With countless (and far less successful) follow-ups, Pearce mostly (but not entirely) chose to stay out of the on-screen limelight after the show ended more than 20 years. years ago.

Although “Frasier” itself has gone through a much-needed reboot on Paramount+, with a number of the show’s original cast members appearing in at least one episode, Niles has been noticeably absent. (Funny, that’s when he was he asked About the possibility of this reboot years ago, Pearce assumed it would never happen.) While his character’s son makes regular appearances in the new show, ensuring that both Niles and Daphne are mentioned in dialogue, we have yet to see Pearce. The actor has publicly admitted that he chose not to appear on the show. So this makes the question even more pressing: What happened to Pierce after “Frasier” ended? Well, the short version is simple: More often than not, he chooses to act on stage.

In some ways, it makes perfect sense. Pierce isn’t the only “Frasier” cast member to have acted on stage. Grammer even had a post-“Frasier” stint in the Broadway revival of “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” which received a Tony nomination. But shortly after “Frasier” ended in 2004, Pierce moved on to another popular comedy property in the Monty Python universe. He portrayed Sir Robin, among other characters, in the original Broadway version of “Spamalot,” alongside such cast members as Tim Curry as King Arthur and Hank Azaria as Sir Lancelot. Having famous film and television actors on stage is certainly nothing new, but Pierce has come from 11 years of doing the live stage type of theater (when you consider the kind of humor and storytelling in “Frasier”) to proving his acting and singing skills on stage in a play A long-awaited and widely loved musical. (It’s also to Pearce’s credit that you can easily see him playing King Arthur now that he’s a bit older; he wouldn’t just be pigeonholed as the more cowardly character type.) And unlike some of the big-name actors and actresses who do theater it feels almost like a lark; For Pierce, it has almost become a second life for him. He won his first Tony Award not for “Spamalot,” but for the next Broadway show in which he starred, “Curtains.”

Although you may not immediately recognize “Curtains” the way you might recognize “Spamalot” from its origins in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” the 2006 musical had a pretty impressive group of people involved alongside Pearce, including This includes the composition team of John Kander and Fred Ebb, who is best known for composing the music for the Broadway musical “Chicago.” In “Curtains,” Pierce played a detective on the case to solve a murder amid the backstage of a musical in Boston, while also indulging his passion for musical theater.

Pierce would go on to work on Broadway thereafter in shows such as “La Bete” and the recent revival of “Hello, Dolly!”, co-starring Bette Midler in the title role. What’s more, Pearce returns to the stage this year in a new version of the popular comedy operetta The Pirates of Penzance.

It’s not that David Hyde Pierce has completely avoided appearing in films and television since the end of “Frasier,” but his choices have been few and far between and clearly speak more to his own interests than the need to work and collect a paycheck. Perhaps his most notable work after “Frasier” was in Max’s final series, “Julia,” in which he played Julia Child’s husband, Paul, when she began her prominent career as a famous TV chef in the mid-1960s. (Fans of “Frasier” will no doubt remember that one of the show’s other regular cast members, Bebe Neuwirth, played Frasier Crane’s ex-wife Lilith.) Although Pierce looked similar, if somewhat older, in “Julia,” He is a “Frasier” type of character. The character he played (a husband who has to deal with the fact that his wife has become famous while his artwork is ignored) allowed him a level of complexity not always present in his excellent work, “Fraser.” Although the series was canceled after two seasons, it specifically felt like a breath of fresh air for fans who may not have seen it in its few other appearances. (The most notable of these roles is a recurring role on the CBS series The Good Wife.) Of course, Another Breath of Fresh Air itself was a reboot, with Pierce returning to one of his most iconic roles in Netflix’s Wet Hot American Summer reboot: First Day of Camp for a few episodes, as well as briefly following up Ten Years Later .

David Hyde Pierce made himself a star as Niles Crane in Frasier, and the fact that his Emmy-winning work seems like an impossible standard for other actors to live up to speaks to his quality as an actor. It’s enviable to be one of the people who’ve seen him thrive on the Broadway stage in the past two decades, because the success of “Frasier” has allowed him to flex his muscles wherever he pleases. If you haven’t seen him make quick TV appearances over the years, or in the indie thriller “The Perfect Host” (in which he plays a deadlier version of Niles), just know that he hasn’t completely fallen off the map and consider yourself lucky when he decides to appear on the big screen or Small again.