“Before I know it, they’ve got me coming in reading with Kelsey in the flesh, and that was, I think, the first in-person audition I’d done since before the pandemic,” Cutmore-Scott explained. “It was deeply intimidating, obviously, acting opposite Kelsey, but also Jimmy Burrows was in the room.” The “Jimmy Burrows” in question here is television icon James Burrows, who directed countless TV classics like “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” and “Will and Grace” and co-created the beloved sitcom “Cheers.” (Frasier Crane, in case you forgot, showed up on that series before getting his own.) Burrows was also heavily involved with the original run of “Frasier,” directing 32 episodes of the show’s 11 seasons and winning an Emmy along the way for the episode “The Good Son.”
With the highly decorated, deeply respected industry veteran in the room (Burrows directed the new show’s first two episodes), Cutmore-Scott was understandably nervous. “He’s everything, so just to have him silently judging you is one of the more intimidating…” the actor said, trailing off before adding that the audition was “definitely terrifying.” But Cutmore-Scott showed them something worth watching: he was asked back for yet another audition afterward. “They made me come back and do it again a week later, they hadn’t had enough,” he told “The Talk.”