Kelsey Grammer, the Emmy-winning actor known for Frasier and Cheers, X-Men: Days of Future Past, The Expendables 3 and Broadway’s Finding Neverland, will conduct a Q&A session Friday, April 15, after the Louisiana International Film Festival screening of Breaking the Bank.
In Breaking the Bank, Grammer plays Sir Charles Bunbury, an upper crust Londoner who loses everything after foreign bankers stage a hostile takeover of his British bank.
Grammer answered our questions at the Hilton Baton Rouge Capitol Center ahead of the screening of his new film at Perkins Rowe.
Breaking the Bank was shot in London and Hampshire, England. Had you worked in the United Kingdom before? No, but I’ve had so much interaction with the English. You go back to Frasier days, they were such Anglophiles it was sort of ridiculous.
My buddy Vadim Jean directed Breaking the Bank. He and I worked together years ago on a film called The Real Howard Spitz. We became best friends. We didn’t enjoy the kind of success we’d hoped to enjoy for that film, but we’ve been looking for something else to do ever since.
Vadim sent the Breaking the Bank script to me. I liked the character (Sir Charles Bunbury). He’s a bit of a buffoon, this character, but we found a way to make him likable and vulnerable. He’s a man who’s in over his head. He loses everything—his wife, his daughter, his bank and his life. He finally finds a way to get them all back.
The film reminds me of the British comedies Peter Sellers starred in before he became an international star with The Pink Panther. Vadim wanted to do something like The Lavender Hill Gang and the classic English comedies. Breaking the Bank falls somewhere between an allegorical, educational tale and a classic English comedy. It’s a bit of a window into what happened during the financial meltdown.
Was it difficult to develop a British accent for the role of Sir Charles? Oh, no. I’ve been on a conversational level with English people for a long time. I have an OK British accent. I can’t do some of the northern England stuff. My wife is English, and she’ll throw out a Yorkshire or a Manchester accent. I’m thinking, ‘Oh, dear God. There’s no way I can ever do that.’ But the classic, upper-crust Londoner, I approximate that pretty well. In fact, some people who saw the film said, ‘I had no idea he was English.’
In 2015 and earlier this year, you appeared on Broadway in Finding Neverland. Tell us about that experience. Yep. Just finished up a week-and-a-half ago. It was wonderful. I went in and out of the production, but I had such a great time. I promised them when I left last year that I would come back. So I did another four weeks and then another three weeks after I shot a pilot in L.A. called The Last Tycoon. It’s been a very nice year so far. Nice work.
In recent years you’ve appeared in X-Men: Days of Future Past, Transformers: Age of Extinction and The Expendables 3. Are people surprised to see you in action pictures? I love being in those films. When I started out as an actor, all I wanted to do was play different roles. But if you get success in a certain role, especially in a high-profile situation like television, it can be challenging for people to accept you in a different role. It’s still, ‘Oh, yeah. That’s the guy who played Frasier.’ But I think people are ready to accept that I can be something else as well.
I just finished a film in Australia (The Nest) where I play a really bad guy who’s lost in a spider’s nest. It was so much fun. And I just voiced the head stork in an animated movie called Storks. I’m having fun trying these different things.
Have you ever shot a film or television project in Louisiana? My buddy, Jake Seal, one of the producers of Breaking the Bank, has a studio here and a studio in England. He does quite a bit of work here and he’s had a good deal of success. So we’re talking about expanding our presence into this part of the world. I hear it’s a real friendly filmmaking place.
What do you hope audiences get from Breaking the Bank? I hope they enjoy this character. He’s a very warm fellow who discovers his shortcomings and then morphs into a different man and wins his life back. That’s always a nice story to see.
Breaking the Bank is showing at 7:30 p.m. Friday, April 15, at Cinemark Perkins Rowe. Tickets and festival passes are available online at lifilmfest.org/breaking-the-bank.
