Award-winning actor Ted Danson, describes working on A Man on the Inside, as one of his favorite experiences. In his words, here's why.
EXCLUSIVE: Ted Danson Talks A Man on the Inside: “I’ve Been Preparing for This for 76 Years”
Published on Dec. 06, 2024
If you’ve ever been a fan of the 1982 sitcom Cheers, you’ll definitely remember Ted Danson in his breakout role as Sam Malone, the charming bartender who kept everyone coming back for more. Danson’s performance earned him two Primetime Emmy Awards and two Golden Globes, solidifying his place as a TV legend.
Since then, Danson has built an impressive career with roles across genres, including his acclaimed role in the award-winning fantasy-comedy The Good Place. Now, he’s back with a new twist in the Netflix original series, A Man on the Inside—also directed by The Good Place creator Michael Schur.
After its premiere on November 21, A Man on the Inside quickly became a hit, landing in Netflix’s Top 10 most popular shows in the U.S. for two weeks. In this series, Danson plays a retired professor who goes undercover at a San Francisco retirement home—sounds like a fun ride, right?
Danson recently sat down with Reader’s Digest to share insights about his career, the show and how the experience resonated with him personally as a 76-year-old actor. His reflections are both inspiring and entertaining, proving that even after decades in the spotlight, Danson is still finding new ways to captivate audiences.
Whether you’ve already binged A Man on the Inside or it’s still on your must-watch list before 2024 wraps up, you’re in for a treat! Check out our full interview below and dive into the behind-the-scenes scoop—you won’t want to miss it!
Reader’s Digest: Aisle seat or window?Â
Ted Danson: Window.
Reader’s Digest: Dogs or cats?Â
Ted Danson: Nothing against cats—dogs.
Reader’s Digest: Mornings or nights?Â
Ted Danson: Mornings.
Reader’s Digest: Would you rather time travel to the past or future?
Ted Danson: I’m excited to find out on my own about the future, so I’ll go past—time travel definitely to the past.
Reader’s Digest: If you weren’t an actor, what would you be doing?
Ted Danson: I’d be a butler—[with] a very select crowd of people that I’d work for.
Reader’s Digest: What advice would you give to your younger self if you could?
Ted Danson: I can’t wait for you to see what’s happening next for you. I’d say relax and enjoy.
Reader’s Digest: Your character in A Man on the Inside is a retiree who becomes a private investigator. What drew you to this role, and how did you prepare to play someone stepping into such an unexpected second act of life?
Ted Danson: The creator of this show is Mike Schur, who did The Good Place, so I’ve worked with him for four years. He’s one of my favorite writers I’ve ever worked with. He’s brilliant and writes funny, purposeful, human stuff. I love working with him. His producer Morgan Sackett, called me and said we want you to look at the documentary a mole agent out of Santiago, Chile. I did and it was just spectacular. It was touching, sweet, funny and talking about a subject that needs to be talked about, which is aging. We tend to shy away from that in our country, and so I said, yes immediately.
As far as preparing, I’ve been preparing for this for 76 years, because it’s about aging. So I got that under my belt. It’s about somebody who has lost his wife a year before and his life is starting to shut down. I’ve got that because, as an actor, you always imagine what if—that’s part of your preparation. And if I try to imagine what life would be like without my wife, Mary Steenburgen, I can barely talk so I can guess what loss would be like. It would be horrible, and I could imagine I would shut down too. So all of that stuff just kind of comes with age and the fact that his job is to go into a retirement home and investigate and find out secretly who’s been stealing jewelry in the place.
So it’s the idea of a man my age who’s good at technology, who’s good at spying—silly. I’m a terrible spy, but I love doing it because it’s very exciting, and it gets me out of my my smaller and smaller world that I’m living in. So it’s fun to play and then it goes places that are really loving and wonderful, but also very real about what it is to age. There’s sadness, there’s grief, there’s loss. It’s a wonderful show that only Mike, I think, could write.
Reader’s Digest: How do you relate to your character on a personal level? Are there any traits or quirks of the retiree-turned-detective that remind you of yourself?
Ted Danson: This is one of those pieces that is talking about something so real in everyone’s life, including memory loss. Somebody in your family may be dealing with it, or you yourself may end up dealing with it. It’s something so human and sad and hard to deal with that my job was to try not to have a false note, because if all of a sudden you saw me being not truthful—or any of the actors in the piece when we were talking about some of the sadness and grief that you just face in life—if there had been a false note or you could dismiss it, it would have been such a shame, because you want to honor aging.
Reader’s Digest: It’s nice that you’re being so open about it. This is real life that people experience—getting older, trying to figure out what they’re going to do next. So it’s exciting for viewers to take on something that is not only fun to watch, but there’s also a deeper meaning behind it. Moving on to the next question … you’ve had a long and diverse career, from Cheers to The Good Place and now this series. How did your experiences on past shows influence your approach to this new role? Did you bring any lessons from those projects into your performance here?
Ted Danson: I’ve been so blessed with good writing—and when you have good writing, you’re just praying that you live up to the words. The words are so beautiful that your job is to not mess up the words. I don’t know what I’ve learned in the past. It all feels like part of who I am now at 76 includes all the work that I’ve done up to them.
Reader’s Digest: The show seems to have a mix of comedy, mystery and some serious undertones. In your words, how does the show balance those elements, and what kind of journey can viewers expect from this blend of genres?
Ted Danson: It starts out funny. It’s funny to think of a man my age good at technology. My character is pathetic at it, but he’s so excited to be a spy that it’s this wonderful combination of being delightfully bad at it, and that brings humor. You get to go into funny meetings with people, but it’s all because I’m kind of such a bad spy. Sometimes, because we’re all comedy writers, the temptation is to be funny at the end of a scene and let people off the hook. So it still is joyful and light, but we go places that are very, very real. I’m very proud of it. It’s really a celebration of life, you know, including the sad part.
If you’re lucky enough to be in your elder years—because not everybody gets to do that—then just be celebrating it. Do the best you can. Keep getting out there into the world. Don’t isolate. I think in a funny way, older people have the responsibility of showing their children how to live their life fully until they’re no longer alive. What a great gift that would be to give our children.
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