Frasier fans were shocked this week after original long-term cast member Roz, played by Peri Gilpin, made a surprise return to the rebooted show.
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Gilpin played Roz on the original incarnation of the show for eleven seasons and was reunited with Frasier Crane, played by Kelsey Grammer, on screen this week for the first time in 20 years for the season’s finale.
Roz surprises Frasier at Christmas, his first without dad Martin (played by John Mahoney, who died in 2018).
Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Gilpin said: “I just loved getting to do it. It was a fantasy come true to play that part again and to go back into that world. And there’s bittersweet things because it makes me so sad when I think about John. I miss him. He was a great friend, but I feel like they dealt with that.”
She continued: “They go back to John every chance they can and they refer back. They refer back to Cheers. They refer back to our first Frasier and I feel like we’re kind of a part of it. It felt very comfortable there and wonderful and it was really funny. It’s like a comfort when you watch it. You’re like, ‘Oh my gosh, I get to see this again. It’s new, it’s fresh, but I am getting the same feelings I got from watching it the first time.’”
Gilpin also told the publication that she’s even open to returning as Roz in a regular role “if that’s a possibility, if that’s something that happens.”
You can see the moment the pair reunite here:
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“[Roz and Frasier] had a great, great friendship and both of them needed that friendship,” Gilpin continued. “I think he was like her older brother and she could always go to him. And those friendships are very, very hard to come by, you realise.”
“I loved the character because I loved that I got to go someplace that is very much me, but that I’m afraid to go to out in the world. In my family — growing up in my family, and in my family now — I can be as smart ass as I want to be and I really enjoy that. But I really loved being able to play that and say all the things that we’re thinking, but we don’t get to say.”
Alongside Grammer, the revival stars Nicholas Lyndhurst as university professor Alan, Jack Cutmore-Scott as Frasier’s son Freddy, Anders Keith as Frasier’s nephew David, Jess Salgueiro as Eve and Toks Olagundoya as Olivia.
Grammer revealed earlier this year that he couldn’t convince former co-star on the show David Hyde Pierce to return to his role of Niles Crane.
In a four-star review of the show, NME wrote: “Yes, the genius that is David Hyde Pierce’s Niles is sorely missed, but Frasier is still as tasty as a tossed salad and scrambled eggs.”
The post ‘Frasier’: Roz makes return in this week’s season finale appeared first on NME.
