Ted Danson admits leaving ‘Cheers’ was like jumping off a cliff

Ted Danson is reflecting on walking away from his iconic character in “Cheers.”

During a recent episode of his podcast, “Where Everybody Knows Your Name,” the 77-year-old actor was asked by his guest, Charlie Day, if he ever worried about being typecast as an actor after playing such an iconic character for so long.

“First off, the transition was easy because I blew my personal life up so badly in that moment of leaving that it didn’t even dawn on me that I had quite left ‘Cheers’ for months because I was just dealing with myself and my personal stuff,” Danson said.

When asked if the work he was doing on himself in his personal life contributed to his decision to leave the show, Danson explained he thinks he chose to leave “because I went, ‘I’m blowing s— up in my life for the better.'”

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Ted Danson said that when he chose to leave “Cheers,” his thought process was, “I’m blowing s— up in my life for the better.” (Getty Images)

Danson starred on the beloved sitcom as Sam Malone from 1982 to 1993, becoming one of the few cast members to appear in all 273 episodes of the show. “Cheers” came to an end after 11 seasons, when Danson expressed his desire to pursue other acting opportunities, with executives deciding the show should not go on without him.

“I was changing for the better and working really hard at that, so I thought, ‘Might as well jump completely off the cliff,'” he explained. “And [there was] a little bit of… if I don’t leave now, I may not know if I could do anything else and I want to see if I can do any other stuff.”

In terms of getting typecast, Danson shared that he believes it’s “in your hands.” While there will always be times “where critics or people don’t want you to be” anything other than a specific character, he said that “if you don’t pay any attention to that,” the issue is easy to avoid.

When it came time to step away from Sam Malone, Danson admitted it wasn’t as hard as it had been for some of the other characters he’s portrayed on screen.

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Danson starred on the show for its entire run, from 1982 to 1993. (Aaron Rapoport/Corbis/Getty Images)

“My job was to love every character in the bar. I regard unconditional love of everybody there, and that allowed the audience into that wacky world,” he said. “That’s how [creator James] Burroughs described it. So… it was easier to not be Sam Malone than probably it was some of the other characters.”

Following his time on the show, Danson starred in a number of films and later as the lead in another successful sitcom, “Becker,” which ran from 1998 to 2004. In 2000, he began playing a fictionalized version of himself on “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” a role he would return to many times before the show’s finale in 2024.

Most recently, Danson starred in the comedy “The Good Place” as a demon named Michael, a role which earned him three Emmy nominations, and is currently starring as Charles in Netflix’s “Man on the Inside,” which is based on a real-life story, chronicled in the 2020 documentary “The Mole Agent.”

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“There’s something inherently funny about a 76-year-old man who is a [retired] college professor, his life shut down, his daughter’s worried, so she says, ‘Get a project,’ and he happens to whimsically find a project where he becomes an undercover spy in a retirement home,” Danson told People in November 2024.

Danson went on to star in “Man on the Inside.” (Rodin Eckenroth/Getty Images for Netflix)

He continued, “We get to explore aging, all those things that, in this country, sometimes we’re afraid to talk about, memory loss, everything, we broach with a tenderness and a seriousness still contained in a kind of light-hearted, joyful way.”

Danson went on to say the role is special to him because, at 76 years old, he gets “to be part of this conversation, which is becoming more and more of my conversation in life.”

The role earned him a Golden Globe nomination in 2025, the same year he received the coveted Carol Burnett Award at the show.

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