Hank is the story of a man who was at the top of his game, financially, then was thrown into a life changing situation when his job as CEO comes to an abrupt end. Hand (Kelsey Grammer) and his wife Tilly (Melinda McGraw) and their kids have been enjoying their ritzy life in New York City. The change in economic standing forces them to move away from the big city back to their hometown in Virginia.
Hank Must Pull Himself Up By the Bootstraps
“The premise really has more to do with the emotional growth of the character,” Grammer explained to the Television Critics Association during their summer press tour. “He’s forced into a situation where he has to grow up. Yes, that was a similar quality in [my] previous show Back to You. But it wasn’t quite the same thing because he was a lothario. This [Hank] is a guy who’s just been sort of blissfully ignorant about some of the basic tasks of human existence. And that’s what he’s going to learn to do here. But basically it’s the opportunity to grow up, for a man to actually become a fully realized man.”
Grammer is pleased with the way his character is going to have to start from scratch and build himself up by the bootstraps, so to speak.
Executive Producer Tucker Cawley chimes in, “He’s a guy that thinks, ‘I’ve lost everything that I had,’ but he feels he is destined to return to greatness.”
“That was the pitch that got me,” Grammer exclaimed. The character hits the bottom of the barrel but is optimistic that he will return to the top. “I heard the one line that made me think, ‘That, I can play, and that would be interesting, and it would be fun.’”
Comparing Hank to Frasier
Kelsey Grammer is a legend in the sitcom genre. He stared in Cheers as Dr. Frasier Crane, and then was spun off into his own very successful award-winning series Frasier, which ran from 1993-2004.
“I just hope that I can lend myself to the character in the same way I did to Frasier. He has far less equipment in terms of his life. Frasier loved clutter and conflict. This guy is not that comfortable with all that stuff. He is a simpler man. He made his living in sports, basically. He loves sports. He loves competition. He loves the American dream. He loves the idea of somebody working their way up from the bottom, and he loves the idea of making something of his life and of his family and of himself by virtue off the sweat of his brow.
“And there’ [are] sort of traditional clichéd concepts, but he actually embodies those. And so he’s far less complicated than maybe some of the pompous people. And what might be seen as pompous in this character would really be just the fast that he’s out of touch with some things that he’s either forgot about, like the other day I was trying to make a pot of coffee in my house,” Grammer explains with flair, “and I have a particularly complicated coffee maker. And I actually had three friends trying to make a pot of coffee with me. And none successfully. And I thought it might be a funny thing for Hank because he hasn’t made coffee probably for twenty years.”
Not only is Kelsey Grammer starring in the show, he is also an executive producer. But he said, “I do my best to be as little hands-on as possible. I always like other people to do all the creative work, and then I kind of just get in there and mix it up.”
Grammer suffered a heart attack not too long ago, which he blames on stress. “When they examined my arteries, there were no blocked arteries. I have no cholesterol buildup. I had an event that they think was stress-related.” He said it had not been a good year for him and that took its toll on his health. But he added that it was the impetus to get himself in better shape. “I’m healthier, stronger, [and] faster.”
Comedy is the Place for Kelsey Grammer
Kelsey feels most comfortable in the sitcom genre. When asked if he would consider acting in an hour-long drama, he replied, “It’s not something I think about. I don’t have an aversion to it; I just have [an] aversion to the schedule. The work schedule is just untenable.
In this time of uncertain economy, Grammer says that laughter is great medicine. “Probably one of the greatest human characteristics is our ability to laugh at our situation. I think irony is our strong suit. Humans are at their best when things are at their very worst, and I think comedy is a necessary part of that.
Hank premiers Wednesday, September 30, 2009 at 8 PM ET/PT on ABC.
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