Niles Was Barely A Character When David Hyde Pierce Auditioned For Frasier
David Hyde Pierce is an accomplished actor who's won awards for his various performances on stage and screen. But there's no doubt he's best known for playing the finicky Niles Crane, brother of the titular psychiatrist in "Frasier." Pierce won four Emmys for his performance in the beloved sitcom, which ran from 1993 through 2004, heralding what was basically the official end of the '90s when both it and "Friends" wrapped up in the same year.
To be fair, if all Pierce did in his career was play Niles, there'd be no problem. As the Washington Post put it in a 1996 profile of the actor, Pierce "may have been born to play Niles Crane." At the time, he'd been co-starring in "Frasier" for three years, but from the very first episode, he really did seem like the one and only choice to play Niles.
The pilot episode of "Frasier" remains truly unique for introducing a show that seemed as if it had been running for years. The tone, humor, and all-important heart were there from the get-go. Despite producer's concerns about Kelsey Grammer not being up to the task of leading his own show (the actor had just finished playing the same character in a supporting capacity on "Cheers"), "Frasier" hit the ground running thanks to its star's brilliant portrayal of the fussy doctor. But Pierce was every bit as good as his co-star, delivering a perfectly-pitched performance that gave Niles an undeniably pretentious aura yet made him just as endearing as his pompous yet lovable brother.
With that in mind, it might come as a surprise that prior to shooting Pierce himself was seemingly very pessimistic about the show, even after landing his role.
'What part?'
Prior to its debut, producing "Frasier" sounds like a bit of a nightmare. Not only was Kelsey Grammer hesitant to cast Jane Leeves as housekeeper Daphne Moon, the whole show itself was a last-minute pivot. After Grammer and writers David Lee, David Angell, and Peter Casey pitched a show about an ailing millionaire stuck in his high-rise apartment, then-Paramount TV head John Pike nixed the whole thing, forcing Grammer and co. back to the drawing board to work up their Frasier Crane spinoff.
At least it can be said that casting David Hyde Pierce was relatively easy. In Vanity Fair's oral history of "Frasier," David Lee recalled how casting assistant Sheila Guthrie stopped by his office and said, "Have you guys thought of having a brother? This guy looks a lot like Kelsey did when he was younger." The guy in question was, of course, Pierce, who according to Lee, the producers "just fell in love with."
With Niles being somewhat of a hasty addition to the show, it's no surprise that the writers didn't have much for Pierce to work with when the actor first met with them. According to the 1996 Washington Post article, when Pierce first auditioned for Niles he didn't read any lines because there wasn't even a script yet. The actor told the outlet:
"I met with the producers and we just talked for about 45 minutes, about what the brother might be. He was going to be a Jungian and Frasier was going to be a Freudian. Things like that were tossed around. I went back to New York, and not long after that they offered me the part. And I thought, 'What part?' I hadn't seen a script."
When he did see a script, David Hyde Pierce still wasn't impressed
When David Hyde Pierce first got the script for "The Good Son," the very first episode of "Frasier," it did little to allay his concerns. In fact, if you asked the man himself at the time he would have said the pilot script was "terrible." That's literally what the actor said when asked about his first impression, mainly because, as he told Vanity Fair, he thought the writers had "written two of the same character" in Niles and Frasier.
Of course, as things got underway, Pierce quickly realized that Niles and Frasier's similarities, far from being a hindrance to the series, made for comedy gold. The pair were either getting lost in their shared hifalutin fantasies or bickering about the most inconsequential nonsense imaginable, and both scenarios were hilarious.
Sadly, when "Frasier" returned in 2023, it was without Pierce, who declined the offer to reprise the role he'd become known for. Having taken Niles from a vague idea in the minds of the "Frasier" producers, to a fully-realized character with his own emotional and romantic arc across 11 seasons, Pierce decided to leave Niles firmly in 2004 — and that was probably the right decision given the "Frasier" revival was neither disappointing nor remarkable.