Boss - 2ª Temporada

AWARDSLINE: Tom Kane is an extraordinary character, really different from anything that I’ve seen on TV in recent years. He’s really quite Shakespearean.
KELSEY GRAMMER: Well he was a Shakespeare-based kind of character. We wanted to build him a world, at least a minor fiefdom. A kingdom of sorts. A feudal, violent and seething kingdom. That was the kind of guy we wanted to explore.

AWARDSLINE: Since you played a character so long, was there any trepidation on anybody’s part of you going in and you being accepted?
GRAMMER: Well you know, we created the very first scene in the show to allow the audience enough time to put their eyeballs on the guy that they knew was one thing. And then to at least achieve a little ease with the idea that he might do something else. You know, in Britain, they’re used to this; stage, screen, TV, they switch in and out all the time. They’re all Dames and Lords and Serfs and you love everything they do. In America it’s a little harder. They want you to stay the way you are because they love you that way. [laughs] It’s a very sweet sentiment. But you know as an actor it’s a little difficult to go on, and just be the same thing all the time. So we had a conscientious and a conscious task to undertake about allowing the audience in… to accepting me as somebody else. And you know, they came along. In every town I’ve been in since the show premiered, people come up in the most genuine way and say ‘It’s the best work you’ve ever done.’ They are so thrilled about it. They are really really charged about it, because it surprised them.

AWARDSLINE: You touched on working on cable, maybe not as big of an audience but certainly it’s the place to go, I think, for actors and writers and directors. The stuff being done on cable, and basic cable too, is extraordinary right now.
GRAMMER: Right, well I don’t want to insult anybody. The major networks, I think, are still the greatest vehicle for entertainment in our culture. Even greater than film. It’s like, if you’d like to go see a movie, great, maybe several million people see it. Maybe even 30, 40 million people around the world see it in a couple of years’ time. But 10 years on a television show, that audience is dynamic and global, it’s extraordinary, the power of it. So, I would never pooh-pooh the quality of television on network or on cable. What is happening with cable, is there are people willing to take more risk and it doesn’t cost quite as much. And that is smart television and a smart move.