{"id":1974424,"date":"2025-08-22T13:59:03","date_gmt":"2025-08-22T13:59:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=1974424"},"modified":"2025-08-22T13:59:03","modified_gmt":"2025-08-22T13:59:03","slug":"ted-danson-admits-leaving-cheers-was-like-jumping-off-a-cliff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/ted-danson-admits-leaving-cheers-was-like-jumping-off-a-cliff\/","title":{"rendered":"Ted Danson admits leaving &#8216;Cheers&#8217; was like jumping off a cliff"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/wp-content%2Fuploads%2Fsites%2F2%2F2025%2F08%2F109922314.jpg?quality%3D90%26strip%3Dall\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<aside class=\"single__inline-module alignleft wp-block-nypost-editor-partner-article-links\">\n<\/aside>\n<p>Ted Danson\u00a0is reflecting on walking away from his iconic character in \u201cCheers.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>During a recent episode of his podcast, \u201c<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?time_continue=100&amp;v=fiYzV4p8OvM&amp;embeds_referring_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fpeople.com%2Fembed%3Furl%3Dhttps%253A%252F%252Fwww.youtube.com%252Fwatch%253Fv%253DfiYzV4p8OvM%2526feature%253Dyoutu.be%26id%3Dmntl-sc-block_12-0-&amp;source_ve_path=MzY4NDIsMzY4NDIsMjg2NjY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Where Everybody Knows Your Name,<\/a>\u201d the 77-year-old actor was asked by his guest, Charlie Day, if he ever worried about being typecast as an actor after <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/06\/18\/entertainment\/ted-danson-was-dead-wrong-about-shelley-long-on-cheers\/\">playing such an iconic character<\/a> for so long.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFirst off, the transition was easy because I blew my personal life up so badly in that moment of leaving that it didn\u2019t even dawn on me that I had quite left \u2018Cheers\u2019 for months because I was just dealing with myself and my personal stuff,\u201d Danson said.<\/p>\n<p>When asked if the work he was doing on himself in his personal life contributed to his decision to leave the show, Danson explained he thinks he chose to leave \u201cbecause I went, \u2018I\u2019m blowing s\u2014 up in my life for the better.&#8217;\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Danson starred on the\u00a0beloved sitcom\u00a0as Sam Malone from 1982 to 1993, becoming one of the few cast members to appear in all 273 episodes of the show. <\/p>\n<p><a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/05\/22\/entertainment\/kelsey-grammer-shocked-by-cheers-co-star-george-wendts-death-bit-of-a-surprise\/\">\u201cCheers\u201d came to an end <\/a>after 11 seasons, when <a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2025\/01\/06\/entertainment\/ted-danson-receives-carol-burnett-award-at-golden-globes-2025\/\">Danson expressed his desire to pursue<\/a> other acting opportunities, with executives deciding the show should not go on without him.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was changing for the better and working really hard at that, so I thought, \u2018Might as well jump completely off the cliff,&#8217;\u201d he explained. \u201cAnd [there was] a little bit of\u2026 if I don\u2019t leave now, I may not know if I could do anything else, and I want to see if I can do any other stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Ted Danson\u00a0is reflecting on walking away from his iconic character in \u201cCheers.\u201d <span class=\"credit\">YouTube\/Team Coco<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In terms of getting typecast, Danson shared that he believes it\u2019s \u201cin your hands.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>While there will always be times \u201cwhere critics or people don\u2019t want you to be\u201d anything other than a specific character, he said that \u201cif you don\u2019t pay any attention to that,\u201d the issue is easy to avoid.<\/p>\n<p>When it came time to step away from Sam Malone, Danson admitted it wasn\u2019t as hard as it had been for some of the other characters he\u2019s portrayed on screen.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy job was to love every character in the bar. I regard unconditional love of everybody there, and that allowed the audience into that wacky world,\u201d he said. \u201cThat\u2019s how [creator James] Burroughs described it. So\u2026 it was easier to not be Sam Malone than probably it was some of the other characters.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>\u201cFirst off, the transition was easy because I blew my personal life up so badly in that moment of leaving that it didn\u2019t even dawn on me that I had quite left \u2018Cheers\u2019 for months because I was just dealing with myself and my personal stuff,\u201d Danson said about leaving \u201cCheers.\u201d <span class=\"credit\">YouTube\/Team Coco<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Ted Danson, John Ratzenberger, and Rhea Perlman (from left) on the set of \u201cCheers.\u201d <span class=\"credit\">\u00a9NBC\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Following his time on the show, Danson starred in a number of films and later as the lead in another successful sitcom, \u201cBecker,\u201d which ran from 1998 to 2004. In 2000, he began playing a fictionalized version of himself on \u201cCurb Your Enthusiasm,\u201d a role he would return to many times before the show\u2019s finale in 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Most recently, Danson starred in the comedy \u201cThe Good Place\u201d as a demon named Michael, a role which earned him three Emmy nominations, and is currently starring as Charles in Netflix\u2019s \u201cMan on the Inside,\u201d which is based on a real-life story, chronicled in the 2020 documentary \u201cThe Mole Agent.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere\u2019s something inherently funny about a 76-year-old man who is a [retired] college professor, his life shut down, his daughter\u2019s worried, so she says, \u2018Get a project,\u2019 and he happens to whimsically find a project where he becomes an undercover spy in a retirement home,\u201d Danson told\u00a0<a rel=\"nofollow\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/ted-danson-loves-how-a-man-on-the-inside-explores-aging-exclusive-8752566\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">People<\/a>\u00a0in November 2024.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Danson (far right) starred on the\u00a0beloved sitcom\u00a0as Sam Malone from 1982 to 1993, becoming one of the few cast members to appear in all 273 episodes of the show. <span class=\"credit\">\u00a9NBC\/Courtesy Everett Collection<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<figure class=\"nyp-slideshow-modal-image wp-block-image aligncenter size-large\"><figcaption>Most recently, Danson starred in the comedy \u201cThe Good Place\u201d as a demon named Michael, a role that earned him three Emmy nominations. <span class=\"credit\">Richard Shotwell\/Invision\/AP<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>He continued, \u201cWe get to explore aging, all those things that, in this country, sometimes we\u2019re afraid to talk about, memory loss, everything, we broach with a tenderness and a seriousness still contained in a kind of light-hearted, joyful way.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Danson went on to say the role is special to him because, at 76 years old, he gets \u201cto be part of this conversation, which is becoming more and more of my conversation in life.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The role earned him a\u00a0Golden Globe\u00a0nomination in 2025, the same year he received the coveted Carol Burnett Award at the show.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em> \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em> \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source celebrity.land \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ted Danson\u00a0is reflecting on walking away from his iconic character in \u201cCheers.\u201d During a recent episode of his podcast, \u201cWhere Everybody Knows Your Name,\u201d the 77-year-old actor was asked by his guest, Charlie Day, if he ever worried about being typecast as an actor after playing such an iconic character for so long. \u201cFirst off, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1974425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25174],"tags":[25538,21741,23522,348479,22205],"class_list":["post-1974424","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gossip","tag-actors","tag-entertainment","tag-podcasts","tag-ted-danson","tag-television"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Ted-Danson-admits-leaving-Cheers-was-like-jumping-off-a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1974424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1974424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1974424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1974425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1974424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1974424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1974424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}