'Frasier' co-star trades comedy for terror in thriller
LOS ANGELES-Air travel has suffered enough knocks from Hollywood with movies like “The High and the Mighty,” the “Airport” series and the recent “Executive Decision.” Now comes a new terror for all those white-knuckle flyers out there
On Sunday and Monday, NBC presents “Pandora’s Clock,” based on the popular novel by John J. Nance. Talk about trouble in the skies: Quantum Airlines Flight 66 has several reasons to radar-blip no more.
On the 747’s holiday flight from Frankfurt to New York, a passenger dies from a mystery virus more deadly than Ebola. The captain, Richard Dean Anderson (“MacGyver”), is denied landing at any European airport. Desperately low on fuel, the pilot must use his own devices. Meanwhile, the CIA, Hollywood’s favorite villain of the moment. is plotting to shoot Flight 66 out of the sky. Taking part in the tense proceedings are a US. ambassador, played by Robert Guillaume, his assistant, Jane Leeves, a flight attendant, Jennifer Savidge, and a CIA virologist, Daphne Zuniga – all of them TV series veterans.
Leeves is the least likely cast member of the taut thriller. She is best known as the tart tongued Daphne Moon, the earthy nurse on “Frasier.”
She responded immediately to the offer for “Pandora’s Box.”
“When I read the script. I couldn’t wait to see how it came out,” she says “I had never done an action-adventure before. Here was an action-adventure that turned out to be a strong drama as well.”
The movie was shot in Seattle, and I seem to have a strong attraction to the city. Frasier takes place there, even though it has always been shot in Hollywood. We have been campaigning to go there for locations, and I hope we will.”
Born in London and reared in East Grinstead. Sussex, the daughter of an engineer and a nurse, Leeves first yearned to dance in the ballet. An injury at 18 ruled that out, so she dabbled in modeling. TV commercials and rock videos before landing a spot on the bawdy “Benny Hill Show.”
“I guess you could call it English dirty postcard humor,” she says. “Benny Hill was very kind to me. It was a great education.” The timing she learned on that show aids her in the verbal Ping-Pong she shares with Kelsey Grammer as Frasier and John Mahoney as his crotchety father.
It was 1984 that Leeves decided she needed to come to Hollywood if she wanted to succeed as an actress.
“I came here with no prospects, no leads, nothing.” she says. “I immediately joined an acting group, and a few weeks later, we had a showcase performance, where the agents and casting people come to check out the talent. I got myself an agent and a manager, and I started working.”
She landed her first feature film role in William Friedkin’s To Live and Die in LA. Other movies followed: “Miracle on 34th Street”, Monty Python’s “The Meaning of Life” and “James and the Giant Peach” (as the voice of The Ladybug). She also appeared on such TV series as “Murder She Wrote “Blossom” and “My Two Dads,” and as Miles Silverberg’s girlfriend on “Murphy Brown.”
The big break came with “Frasier” “It is an absolutely rich part.” Leeves rejoices. “The writers agreed from the start that there would be no dumb women on the show. It’s delightful to be able to play a woman who has a degree of intelligence”