Kelsey Grammer's Experience Being a Republican in Hollywood and Why Others Say They're "Independent" — Transcript

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1. 0:00I highly recommend you not take a role
2. 0:02across from Patty Lupone. I beg you,
3. 0:04>> you know, Patty did my show years ago.
4. 0:06She's just gotten she's gone down that
5. 0:08that that lane. And you know, I think
6. 0:11it's
7. 0:14how how do you explain it? It's um I
8. 0:16love people of great passion and uh
9. 0:20shortsightedness. U there there's, you
10. 0:22know, it's it's myopia if you want or or
11. 0:25myopic in its way, nearsighted
12. 0:27shortsightedness. there's no real long
13. 0:29game in it because it doesn't really
14. 0:32have human value. It has um
15. 0:37exaggerated value. It's it's like you
16. 0:40you know in in Alcoholics Anonymous,
17. 0:41they talk about how you can raise your
18. 0:43bottom uh meaning the you don't have to
19. 0:46completely bottom out. You don't have to
20. 0:47end up you know sleeping on the street
21. 0:49to realize oh this is now a problem.
22. 0:51Well, in in this case, they've raised um
23. 0:55>> a level of
24. 0:58a perceived injustice or a perceived
25. 1:00need in their society to a place where
26. 1:02it actually is discordant. It doesn't
27. 1:05necessarily
28. 1:07equate to human necessity or human
29. 1:10value. It doesn't necessarily make the
30. 1:12world better. It makes us more strident
31. 1:15and and less tolerant. And certainly if
32. 1:18we believe in tolerance then you don't
33. 1:19need to be yelling and screaming about
34. 1:21whether or not a person with a a mohawk
35. 1:23deserves the same degree of um attention
36. 1:27or or to be taken as seriously as
37. 1:28someone who is wearing a suit. I mean
38. 1:31you you can you can elevate so many
39. 1:34things to a pinnacle of meaning that are
40. 1:38pretty much not
41. 1:40>> very important.
42. 1:41>> So this is your diagnosis of wokeness of
43. 1:43what the woke do. Um, the woke thing is
44. 1:45really it's a manufactured outrage that
45. 1:48has been used as a a lever for political
46. 1:52change
47. 1:53when
48. 1:54>> it's probably not it probably doesn't
49. 1:57have the the teeth for that. It probably
50. 1:59doesn't have the chops to make it all
51. 2:00the way to oh, we have to define our
52. 2:02lives by this. For instance, we have a
53. 2:04lot of people in theater now who say if
54. 2:05you're not gay or or trans or whatever,
55. 2:08you can never play a a gay person. Well,
56. 2:11that would be like
57. 2:12>> how many times do we have to play uh how
58. 2:15[clears throat] many how many how many
59. 2:17straight men do we have to have in the
60. 2:19theater to allow us to have like
61. 2:20straight relationships? Certainly uh at
62. 2:23least in the play itself in the world of
63. 2:25the play a man and a woman are married a
64. 2:27lot of the a lot of people doing those
65. 2:29roles that's not the case but it is
66. 2:32acting.
67. 2:32>> Yeah.
68. 2:33>> And we we've now we've now entered a
69. 2:35world where people say you have to be
70. 2:36the person in order to play the person.
71. 2:38So unfortunately there will be no no
72. 2:40more acting careers because you'll just
73. 2:42>> yeah there was a there was a
74. 2:44>> I'm not going to do that.
75. 2:45>> There was a movie coming out I don't 8
76. 2:48years ago about a trans person and
77. 2:49Scarlett Johansson was supposed to star
78. 2:51and it got killed because she's not
79. 2:53trans.
80. 2:53>> It's ridiculous to think that a person
81. 2:54can't play a trans person.
82. 2:57Surely we could understand actors. Maybe
83. 2:59we don't maybe we don't place the same
84. 3:02value on it as as having you know your
85. 3:04mother uh marry your your father's
86. 3:08brother or something like that. That's
87. 3:09that's Hamlet. [laughter]
88. 3:12I mean I thought we were talking about
89. 3:14great poem by Carl. I was like you're
90. 3:16close. You're you're you almost have.
91. 3:17>> Yeah. Who and he says they yet they all
92. 3:20want to play Hamlet. Um they haven't
93. 3:22exactly seen their mothers you know
94. 3:23messing around with their father with
95. 3:25their father's brother. They haven't ex
96. 3:26seen their fathers murdered. They had
97. 3:28haven't exactly, you know, gone to gone
98. 3:30to the place where you try to stab your
99. 3:32best friend with a with a with a a
100. 3:34sword. Um, and yet they all want to play
101. 3:37Hamlet.
102. 3:39Our creative imagination is what draws
103. 3:40us into being actors. It's not the fact
104. 3:42that we are actually gay or straight or
105. 3:43anything else or married or or Harvard
106. 3:46educated psychiatrist.
107. 3:47>> We can play anything that's part of the
108. 3:50human experience because that's what
109. 3:52we're good at and it's okay to be that.
110. 3:55So, I think everybody agrees with that.
111. 3:57They just pretend not to uh to get
112. 3:59themselves some sort of social clicks.
113. 4:01But you've been kind of outspoken. My
114. 4:03team found a clip of you speaking of you
115. 4:05going on Leno from 2012
116. 4:07talking about being an out Republican.
117. 4:10>> Um now that's that's bold. 2012 like
118. 4:13wow. You came out with it pretty early.
119. 4:15You were already a big star.
120. 4:17>> But why why be so open about it? Because
121. 4:19virtually every Republican I know in
122. 4:21Hollywood just calls themselves an
123. 4:22independent.
124. 4:23>> Yeah. That's why it's so popular now.
125. 4:25There's a lot of people who are
126. 4:26popularly Oh, I'm an independent. Well,
127. 4:29okay. Well, fine. So, thank God you make
128. 4:31some sense once in a while. Um, I'm I'm
129. 4:33[laughter] a little more outspoken about
130. 4:35it. I just think it's sort of exhausting
131. 4:37to be so up in arms about every single
132. 4:40issue that comes down the pike. uh it is
133. 4:43it is not wise I think to take uh
134. 4:47anything but a more long view a longer
135. 4:49view of things to have a little bit of
136. 4:52perspective and to stand back from
137. 4:54issues that seem important in that day
138. 4:56or in that moment and realize that yeah
139. 5:00that's that that's the currency of of
140. 5:02political discourse I guess and and of
141. 5:05trying to win elections or or not win
142. 5:07elections or destroy your opponents. I
143. 5:10mean, we live in America. We're all
144. 5:12Americans. We need to remember that. And
145. 5:15uh at least I believe we need to
146. 5:17remember that. And that my fellow
147. 5:19American is not my enemy. No, that goes
148. 5:21back to my Christian lens that I put on
149. 5:24things, which is, you know, love thy
150. 5:25enemy. Enemy as thyself.
151. 5:28Do unto others as you would have others
152. 5:30do unto you. These are things that still
153. 5:31are important to me. And so that's why I
154. 5:34think I probably outed myself a long
155. 5:35time ago. Uh, in retrospect, and this is
156. 5:39a a current
157. 5:41um topic,
158. 5:44it did relegate me to uh the fringes of
159. 5:47society in Hollywood. And so I may have
160. 5:50had my my my pecadillos, as they say,
161. 5:54but I was never part of the dungeon
162. 5:58crowd, the stuff I've heard about. I'm
163. 6:01not in that world. And so the world that
164. 6:04>> How did it relegate you to the fringes?
165. 6:06>> Oh, well, I wasn't invited to those
166. 6:08parties.
167. 6:10>> Oh, I'm glad I wasn't.
168. 6:14>> Yeah, exactly. Speaking of raising the
169. 6:17bottom, you don't want to go to those
170. 6:19You don't want to go to those parties at
171. 6:20all. I've heard about what goes on
172. 6:21there.
173. 6:22>> Well, that's what I I heard about it a
174. 6:23few years ago. I was on a flight with a
175. 6:25fairly famous actor who shared some
176. 6:27stuff with me that I thought, "Holy
177. 6:30[clears throat]
178. 6:30moly, this actually goes on in
179. 6:33Hollywood." And uh he was a participant
180. 6:36and a and a fairly knowledgeable fellow.
181. 6:38And I thought, "My goodness, I really
182. 6:41dodged a bullet there." [laughter]
183. 6:43>> Are we talking about sex stuff or drug
184. 6:45stuff?
185. 6:45>> Sex slash just all of it. All the stuff
186. 6:48you see sort of.
187. 6:49>> Let me tell you something.
188. 6:51>> News too. News too. I could tell you
189. 6:53some stories not involving yours truly,
190. 6:56but with some people in news that would
191. 6:58make your eyes roll in the back of your
192. 6:59head. People who are on the air right
193. 7:01now posing as very
194. 7:04severe news anchors have a whole
195. 7:06different side.
196. 7:07>> Well, I do love that you have that
197. 7:09information. [laughter]
198. 7:12>> But I like you, I don't go to those
199. 7:14parties. I stay home with my husband.
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