Kelsey Grammer Confirms Whether He’d Return As Beast For Marvel’s X-Men
Kelsey Grammer reveals whether or not he'd once again be one of the X-Men!
This article is more than 2 years old
Not many people associate Kelsey Grammer with the cinematic world of superheroes. He’s known best as the arrogant psychiatrist Dr. Frasier Crane which he originated on the popular sitcom Cheers before leading his own series, Frasier. But two years before Iron Man gave birth to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Grammer proved to be one of the best parts of the one of the least loved Marvel movies. According to a new interview, he’d love to get back to the role.
It was while Kelsey Grammer was on a pub crawl in New Jersey to promote his brewery Faith Moon Brewing Company, that he talked about once again playing Dr. Henry McCoy, aka The Beast of the mutant X-Men. The actor was reminded of it when a fan brought Funko Pop recreations of Beast for Grammer to autograph. The actor told NJ.com, “I‘d love to do Beast again. Nobody’s really talked to me about it. I think maybe they’re gonna try to do another one. I’m assuming that they would go with, you know, the first is the best.”
Kelsey Grammer was the first to play Beast in live-action in 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand. While Nicholas Hoult took over the part starting with 2011’s X-Men: First Class — playing a younger version of the character — Grammer reprised the role for a cameo in 2014’s X-Men: Days of Future Past. The Frasier actor might have had more chances to play the blue-skinned Beast, but unfortunately his premiere as the character proved to be the X-Men film franchise’s first critical failure.
While X-Men: The Last Stand made plenty of money, fans and critics hated it, as evidenced by its 57% score on Rotten Tomatoes — a steep drop from the 85% of its 2003 predecessor, X2: X-Men United. It was the first of the X-Men films to go forward without Bryan Singer, who had exited to make Superman Returns. Regardless of the overall quality of The Last Stand, Kelsey Grammer was the perfect choice for the equally academic and fierce Hank McCoy.
Could Kelsey Grammer return to the role of X-Men’s Beast now that the mutants are under Marvel Studios’ banner? Well, if the MCU has proven nothing else, it is the fictional narrative that embodies the phrase “never say never.” This year, the MCU has seen Evan Peters (kind of) reprise the role of Quicksilver on WandaVision. The upcoming Spider-Man: No Way Home will see at least five villains from non-MCU films — including Alfred Molina’s Doc Ock and Willem Dafoe’s Green Goblin — return to those parts, not to mention J.K. Simmons once again playing J. Jonah Jameson. And of course there’s the rumors about Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield playing different versions of Spider-Man.
Of course, one consideration is Kelsey Grammer’s age. He’s 66 now, and no live-action X-Men projects have been announced yet. If he were to reprise the role of the Beast, at the very least, he’d be flirting with his seventies before it could happen.
One intriguing possibility, particularly considering how prominent Marvel’s Multiverse is becoming, is Dark Beast. In 1995, Marvel published the wildly popular crossover event Age of Apocalypse depicting an alternate, dystopian future in which the eponymous villain conquered America. The Hank McCoy of that alternate reality was evil, and eventually traveled to Marvel’s prime universe where he even worked on the X-Men’s side for a time.
