Ted Danson Says He Initially Thought Shelley Long Was ‘All Wrong’ for Cheers

Ted Danson said his penchant for being wrong was on full display ahead of Cheers casting Shelley Long — who he initially thought would not be a good choice for the role of Diane Chambers.

Speaking on SiriusXM’s Where Everybody Knows Your Name with co-host Andy Richter, Danson, 77, said, “I had the reputation on Cheers where if I suggested something, pretty much — this is not self-deprecating humor or false humility — I was dead wrong. And if they did the opposite, it would work brilliantly.”

The actor added that he is still usually wrong, saying, “I love being able to have an opinion, and I don’t really have that much at stake because it’s wrong. I’m okay to be wrong.”

“One of my first obvious ones was Cheers casting Shelly Long,” Danson said, providing an example of a time his own instincts proved to be wrong. “And I’m going, ‘Oh, no, not Shelly Long. That’d be, that’s all wrong. She’d be terrible for that.’ And she, right out of the shoot, she became this instant, brilliant character actor doing a brilliant job.”

Danson continued: “Serving the entire thing perfectly. It sounds like I’m discounting all the other actors, but that first year she put us on the map. Yeah, she really did.”

“Did she ever know that you had that initial reaction?” Richter asked.

Danson responded: “Yeah, I’ve said it enough that, yeah. But she may not [have]. Maybe she never listened to anything I’ve ever said. I say it as a form of compliment, ’cause my God, she is astounding.”

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In an earlier interview on the SmartLess podcast with Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett,, Danson described his initial interactions with Long as “horrible.”

“I don’t know, we were so different,” he said of the two’s dynamic. “Our styles, our approach, our everything is really different, which is why I think it worked because it was like this fair fight.”

“It was hard for us sometimes to be in the room together,” he added. “But when we started working, it was just fantastic because you’d smack her and she’d smack you back harder. She was just brilliant.”