Morning Wire - Kelsey Grammer on Honoring Veterans and the Meaning of Christmas | 12.26.25

Episode Date: December 26, 2025

Actor Kelsey Grammer has been a fixture in American entertainment for decades, from his iconic roles in “Cheers” and “Frasier” to recent projects that reflect his personal convictions. In this episode, we speak to Grammer about his new film and how his Christian faith has shaped the roles he takes on. Get the facts first with Morning Wire. - - - Ep. 2552 - - - Wake up with new Morning Wire merch: https://bit.ly/4lIubt3 - - - Today's Sponsor: Goldbelly - Go to https://goldbelly.com and get 20% off your first order with promo code WIRE. - - - Privacy Policy: https://www.dailywire.com/privacy morning wire,morning wire podcast,the morning wire podcast,Georgia Howe,John Bickley,daily wire podcast,podcast,news podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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keep that Christmas spirit alive. Since rising to fame in the beloved series, Cheers and its hit spin-off, Frazier, Kelsey Grammer has continued to take on big roles at a frenetic pace. Along with racking up awards over the years, the actor has set himself apart as a Hollywood star

who's fearless about sharing his Christian faith. In this episode, we sit down with the decorated actor to discuss his new film The Christmas Ring, the role military veterans played in its making and the way his faith in Christ has shaped his career. I'm Daily Wire, Executive Editor John Bickley with Georgia Howl. This is a weekend edition of Morning Wire. Have you ever heard of Goldbelly?

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It's a pleasure. So we wanted to talk to you about, well, a number of things, but first, your new film, which is a very relevant wrinkle to it. We just celebrated Veterans Day this week, and the Christmas ring actually involved at one point about 100 actual veterans and service members. Can you tell us about that? Yeah, they inhabited the film, at least in one of the big scenes, with some veterans and some active duty members as well and retired and, you know, and reservists. But it was just an opportunity to salute the troops. The whole story is sort of based upon a World War II D-Day dropping behind enemy lines. It commemorates their sacrifice a little bit

and the continuing sacrifice of service members and so that being around on Veterans Day was important to the filmmakers, I know that. And I understand that Gary Seneese and his foundation played a role in finding some of those veterans to populate the film. Oh, I didn't know about that.

Because Gary and I are pretty good friends. And he actually checked in with me. What do you think of this movie? And I said, well, it's a nice story. You know, so I hope I helped, you know, facilitate some of that. But yeah, I think it went pretty well. And, you know, we didn't, we didn't reinvent the wheel or anything, but it's a nice story about, you know, redemption and love and forgiveness and about Jesus. So it's a nice movie. Yeah, I wanted to ask you exactly about

that, in fact, the role of faith in this film. The author of the book that it's based on is Karen Kingsbury. She's a Christian author. You've recently starred in Jesus Revolution, a powerful film. You played the role of Chuck Smith, the founder of Calvary Chapel where I actually used to go to church, in fact. How important is it to you to play roles that you feel align with or at least sort of have some sort of relationship to your religious perspective? Yeah, well, I don't actually go about trying to play them too much. Actually, the night before I read the script for Jesus Revolution, I was sitting there and kind of a quiet reverie and a little bit lonely and, you know, wondering what was next for me. And I said,

you know, I just want to do something that means something. It has some meaning. And the next morning that script came and, okay, I guess this is it. And I called my agent and about two hours. I said, yeah, I'm going to do this movie. It was important to me. But what was funny was it didn't really kind of resonate for my life until I was doing an interview. I think it was Kelly or, you know, on the East Coast and somebody talked about, you know, well, what's your feeling about Jesus and all that?

I said, well, you know, the truth is I'm a believer. And I don't go around proselyzing or speak in the Born Again Lingo very well, but I would never deny Christ. I would never deny him. And so that brought me into the fold, I guess, of the sort of faith-based film production world. I don't subdue just those movies, but I'm quite happy to this role came up. And I thought, well, yeah, I like this.

This guy, he seems like an interesting fella and has a nice turnaround in the movie and opens up his heart again. That's always, that's always a good lesson. Yeah, and your portrayal of Chuck Smith was, first of all, really terrific. It clearly grounded the film as the heart of the film. This is a very complicated story. It's not straightforward. The lives of the real people that it's based on were messy. They lived messy lives.

Well, that's what Jesus is for, you know. That's why he came along. I work with these guys, Operation Restored Warrior, they talk about the world Jesus was born into. The world was a mess, filled with, you know, infanticide, killing babies, all kinds of just horrific stuff. Roman rule was not the greatest thing in the world,

a lot of violence. And God chose to send a baby to save the world. A baby that would need other people. to save him. It's pretty fascinating. And I always loved that idea that into this mayhem, the beauty of a new life, of a redemptive life is such a gift. And we get to watch it every year at Christmas. We get to see the same story told again and again. And it's our story. And it's a story that never gets old, does it? You've talked openly in the past about the role faith in general has played for you and how important it is.

And I think you touched on it there, this hope for the beauty of a new life in redemption, and that ultimately that brings people together. Do you look for at least an element of that in terms of the projects you get involved with? Well, you know what? I'm about to go play a role where the guy's kind of a shyster, sort of not evangelist, but what you would call a fanatic, who turns out to be kind of a very negative kind of guy. But see, that's what they say, you know, I mean, the devil can quote chapter and verse.

You know, I mean, it's like these elements exist. And so I just believe I'm supposed to, as an actor, play everything that comes to at me that, you know, is part of the human experience. And, I mean, like I played Macbeth years ago, they, Macbeth is a very dark character to play. I'm used to walk around going like,

maybe I better say prayer every time before I play them or something else. But we are, designed to play these roles because we have a kind of an understanding that makes us, that people, people can believe we inhabit those roles. You know, they accept us in different roles. And so we loan what I like to call, we loan the truth of what we know about experience to the characters so that they sound authentic, that they seem real, that they seem like, oh, I believe that's possible. And that's, so I do, I do everything. I mean, and I'm doing, We just did another Avengers.

I play Beast again in the Avengers movie. And that's about faith, too, in a lot of ways. I mean, let's face it. You know, we're saving each other. We're fighting the good fight. It's against impossible odds. And triumph comes to them. You know, it's the Jesus story, isn't it?

Indeed. And like you said, as long as a character and a story are grounded in reality, to me, the truth always leads to the higher truth to Christ. So a film can be dark, but still have a lot. a moral grounding. And like you're saying, you're playing a role which maybe points people toward the consequences of sin. That in itself is a faith message. Right. And it's not, it's not necessarily the victory. You know, the victory doesn't live necessarily in that evil. So, I mean, it's a, you know, it's a funny world out there. It's, we navigate the best we can.

Right. Well, it's messy. Now, obviously, you've played a lot of roles. The landscape has changed for Hollywood in so many ways in recent decades. How have you seen that dynamic playing out in terms of your career? Well, listen, there's some diehards here. They're sticklers for, you know, they just don't like religion. They're not going to go for it. They're not going to be part of it. But there are others who are, and that's great.

I just think Hollywood finally realized that, you know, there's money out there for these kind of movies as well. You know, most of the people in America actually still really like God and Jesus and all that sort of stuff. stuff and like one another and they want the kids to ride in the neighborhood, ride the bikes in neighborhoods where they're safe. They, you know, these are corny values, but still there they are. And that's part of America and a place where you can aspire to do something and nobody says

you can't do it or the only way you're going to be able to do it is if the government gives you some money for it. No, we do this. People do this. I always believe that social programs were society's business and not the governments anyway. So that's who I am. but we have an obligation to one another, and our government can't actually fulfill it for us.

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up. We've been documenting on this show what looks to be a trend in entertainment. Like there's more of a space for faith-focused films lately. And I do think, like you're saying, actually capitalism can end up promoting for its own purposes, you know, a lot of good things that people really do want to see this stuff.

There's a real hunger for it. Yeah. So what's coming next for you? You've got this sheister role coming. What else is on the horizon for you? Well, I'm planning that next time. I'm going to go shoot that next week. We've got one in the can that's coming out pretty soon called Turbulance,

which is really, really fun. A day trip on a hot air balloon over the Alps is short-circuited by a nutty woman. That's okay. Yeah, it happens. And I don't do so well. Somewhere around the middle of the film, we pitch my guy off the basket. Oh, goodness. There's another one coming up when I'm.

I'm going to be fighting some sharks. There's just fun stuff I get a chance to do. I haven't fought a shark before, so I'm going to do that one. Just don't jump a shark, whatever you do. Yeah, exactly. And I've got another one coming up in Malibu, where I'm going to shooting for a week. It's called Claws, where a mountain lion's gone, a little crazy,

and killing some people. I ended up fighting. All right, so you fight gravity, sharks, and a mountain lion. Everything you can. Yeah, everything they throw at me. I'm going to take it up. Sounds like a lot of fun.

So things not slowing down for you at all, even with the holidays here coming up. Kelsey, thank you so much for talking with us. Just a total joy and great luck with the upcoming projects. Thanks, man. Good to see you. It's a pleasure. That was Kelsey Grammer,

talking about his new film, The Christmas Ring, available now to rent or buy online. And this has been a special edition, Morning Wire.