Yahoo Lifestyle “A Man on the Inside” star Ted Danson just wants to 'try to be funny at every age'
"We think that life sort of starts to end at a certain age — life doesn't end until it ends," he tells EW.
Recently, Ted Danson has come to an epiphany about his life and career.
"I realized what I really want to do with my life and my acting is, with whatever life I'm given, to experience what it is to try to be funny at every age, just to keep exploring what it's like to be human, and human with a sense of humor at any age," the actor, 76, tells Entertainment Weekly. "And then this came along and it was like, wow, this was perfect."
This meaning his latest show, A Man on the Inside. Created by Mike Schur and inspired by the Oscar-nominated documentary The Mole Agent, the eight-episode dramedy follows Charles (Danson), a retired man and widower who gets a new lease on life when he answers an ad from a private investigator and becomes a mole in a secret investigation in a nursing home.
Netflix
Ted Danson as Charles and Mary Elizabeth Ellis as Emily in 'A Man on the Inside'Like so many of his roles to date — Cheers, The Good Place — the new series allowed him to continue doing something he's always loved doing, which is "drama that has some humor," Danson says. "I love comedy that explores the human condition, and the human condition is full of laughter and full of tears. And so to be able to play that [in A Man on the Inside] and that allowed me to explore all of that with these amazing actors was just a joy."
Specifically, it also allowed him to explore a topic that is often overlooked in film and television — aging from both the perspective of the elderly and the younger generations looking on. And to that end, Danson feels A Man on the Inside has a valuable life lesson for everyone, himself included. "One of the messages I feel in life and in this story is, Mary [Steenburgen, actress and Danson's wife] always says that we tell our children, 'You can do anything, you can be anything.' And then there's a period in life when we stop telling that to ourselves," he says. "All of a sudden we think there's an age limit or something, a shelf life to our being creative and productive and giving in life. And there isn't, shouldn't be, and it's up to people my age to keep going."
Danson continues, "It's a good message to younger people too, to your children, that there's no shelf life to your creativity, your productivity, and to your contribution to the world. So keep going. Look, here I am in my 70s, 80s, and I'm still going. It is a good message to younger people, too. So it's not just about aging — we think that life sort of starts to end at a certain age. Life doesn't end until it ends, and we should be celebratory from birth to death. Life is not just that younger part. Yes, it hurts, and there's grief and sadness and loss, but keep going. Keep going."
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A Man on the Inside, which also stars Stephanie Beatriz, Lilah Richcreek Estrada, Mary Elizabeth Ellis, Eugene Cordero, Stephen McKinley Henderson, Sally Struthers, Danielle Kennedy, John Getz, and Susan Ruttan, is now streaming on Netflix.
