Ted Danson wants people to know that life doesn’t stop when you’re 76. That’s also why he was excited to work with showrunner Mike Schur again (A good place) for their new Netflix series A man within.
“Sometimes people my age tend to play it cautiously,” says the Cheers alum tells Yahoo Entertainment. “You tell your children that you can be anything you want, you encourage them… ‘Go for it, you beautiful young children.’ And when we get to a certain age, we stop telling ourselves that. And that’s not true.”
The series is about a retired professor Charles (Danson) who, a year after the death of his wife, feels stuck where he is in life. After answering an ad from a private investigator, Charles goes undercover at a retirement home to find out who stole a resident’s family heirloom. It is a comedy that does not shy away from misconceptions about aging.
“There are no limits to your ability to make a difference in the world and inspire people,” says Danson. “And the fact that you keep moving forward is what keeps you alive and happy to be alive. So it’s also up to us, at our age, to be a good example for everyone else.”
A man within is based on the Oscar-nominated documentary The mole cop. Schur tells Yahoo that it was important to emphasize the underlying theme of the film: life doesn’t stop just because you get older.
“When I thought about how to adapt it, I thought it bothered me a lot, which is, we’re really bad at talking about aging in this country. We’re obsessed with young people,” says the producer. “Every product advertised on TV says, ‘Look younger, act like you’re not aging!’ I think that’s really stupid, especially because getting older is the good outcome, right? The best case scenario for all of us is that we get older and yet we still think of getting older as something that is embarrassing or shameful, different we have to pretend this isn’t happening.’
For people who loved the magic with which Danson and Schur created A good placetheir new series still has those elements of a feel-good show. However, Schur wanted to be sure A man within also depicted the reality of growing older.
“It’s not perfect. There are aches and pains and memory loss and death and injury and everything else, but again, this is the good scenario. This is what we want,” he says.
The series also deals with the theme of how important friendship is as you get older.
“Dear Lord, friendship is everything,” Danson says. “Even in your marriage, friendship should be the most important thing. I am best friends with my [wife].”
Danson has been married to actress Mary Steenburgen since 1995.
“Friendship is kind of eternal, you know? And romance is… oh, I’m in trouble here,” he jokes. “Because I have romantic feelings for my wife, but she’s also my best friend.”
While making the series, some of the themes hit close to home for Schur, 49, who says we can all learn some lessons from Charles.
“When I first moved to Los Angeles and lived with my now wife and then girlfriend, we went out all the time. We saw our friends all the time. We had dinner parties all the time. We went to parties, we went to plays and we had adventures and then life happens,” the producer explains. “We’re married, we have kids, we both have careers. And now the extracurricular things we do are very limited.”
Schur concludes: “My Charles challenge to myself, and it’s part of why I wanted to write this show, is to remind myself that you can’t live like this. You have to go out into the world and try things and people seeing and having adventures and traveling as best as you can, because those are the things that keep you on your toes and also remind you that people are meant to be together… not to be satisfied with every time sit on the couch and watch TV at night, but to go do things.”
A man within begins streaming on November 21 on Netflix.
