According to The Hollywood Reporter, recently David Hyde Pierce explained why he didn’t return to the 2023 reboot of Frasier. The actor states that the reboot came at time when Pierce had a busy schedule and that it wasn’t due to any lingering bad feelings. When speaking to Los Angeles Times he spoke about why he didn’t return to the reboot as well as his upcoming role in Julia Child’s series Julia and in the late Stephen Sondheim’s Here We Are.
He said to the Los Angeles Times, “I never really wanted to go back. 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.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, by the time Pierce knew about the official talks over the reboot she had already started the Julia series. The actor was also working on two different musicals at the time so his plate was already full with a variety of projects. Pierce expressed, “I just thought, ‘I don’t want to be committed to a show and not be able to do stuff like this.’ 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.”
He also said, “I had tried to get everybody back because that’s what I thought was the right and faithful thing to do. I wanted to remain faithful to them. But them not wanting to do it was fine. Certainly, their choice. Actually, it led us to some choices that we wouldn’t have done, probably, and I was very happy that we did them. I’m very happy that we ended up in Boston. That never would’ve happened if the rest of the cast had come back.”
The 1993 original of Frasier as well as the reboot are available to stream on Paramount+.