Ted Danson has been a staple of television for decades, but the actor revealed on Wednesday that he nearly left the small screen behind entirely after “Help Me Help You” was canceled on ABC mid-season.
“It was after ‘Cheers’ and ‘Becker’ and I tried another half-hour and I just felt like — it didn’t work out, then it was like, ‘Oh, I’ve stayed at this half-hour party too long,’” Danson said on his podcast “Where Everybody Knows Your Name.” “‘I’m no longer funny. I’m not amusing myself. There are people doing really amazing, funny stuff. I’m gonna stop doing this.’”
Danson was joined by Adam Scott on his podcast, where Woody Harrelson (who co-starred alongside him on “Cheers” starting in Season 4) “sometimes” appears as co-host. During the interview, Danson talked about several diversions in his career, such as when he sought to act in dramatic films (citing “Saving Private Ryan” with Steven Spielberg) and when he got pulled into appearing early on in “Curb Your Enthusiasm” (a show he thought “sucks” after watching the pilot).
It wasn’t until the FX legal thriller “Damages” that Danson really got pulled back into television.
“‘Damages’ gave me the thing. It took the bored out of my butt in that it’s brilliant writing but literally you would be called to the set for a scene and be handed warm pages of the scene that they had just rewritten,” Danson said. “It was like I had carte blanche.”
You can watch the full interview below:
It’s hard to imagine a time with Danson out of the TV spotlight, as each generation has essentially had their own vehicle with him at the center dating back to the 1980s. He was on “Cheers” from 1982 to 1993, “Becker” from 1998 to 2004, “Damages” from 2007 to 2010, “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” from 2011 to 2015, “The Good Place” from 2016 to 2020, and now “A Man on the Inside” among a great many other series.
But Danson said “Damages” was the series to pull him out of a brief TV funk. He also noted that it was the first series to get him to hire an acting coach.
“It was brilliant,” Danson responded. “What was weird was the writers, the Kesslers, Glenn and Todd came up to me a week before we started shooting and said, ‘Would you mind going to our acting coach?’ and I was like ‘Oh, f–k man, I guess I’m really miscast and they’re worried.’”
“I was smart enough to go, ‘Yes, of course!’ even though I was dying inside. I went and he was brilliant.”
The acting coach, Danson said, informed him that he’s a “nice actor,” one who audiences can trust to deliver their lines and make it to the end. For a harsh like billionaire Arthur Frobisher in “Damages,” Danson would need to tap into something else.
“You need to have an irreverence to the material,” Danson was told. “You need to have, in your mind, ‘You know what? I’ve said this line and f–k you, I don’t particularly feel like saying the next line.’”
“It was so freeing to me that I all of a sudden started to love acting again.”
