Although he has previously acted on stage and screen, most people were first introduced to David Hyde Pierce through his role as Neals Crane on the NBC sitcom Frasier. Pierce was, in the long run, the secret sauce that helped differentiate "Frasier" from "Cheers," as Niles quickly became a fan favorite and was one half of the show's long-running "will they/won't they" romance, culminating in marriage and a baby between him and his father's home health worker Daphne Moon. Aside from the way audiences loved Pierce as Niles, it was clear the industry loved him, too: He was nominated 11 times for the Emmy for Best Supporting Actor, winning four times, including for the show's final season in 2004. But unlike Kelsey Grammer, who continued to ply his trade in the world of sitcoms with countless (and far less successful) follow-ups, Pierce chose to mostly (but not completely) step away from the screen spotlight after the show ended more than 20 years.

Although "Frasier" itself went through the requisite Paramount+ reboot, with many of the show's original cast members appearing for at least one episode, Niles was notably absent. (Funnily enough, when he was he asked about the likelihood of such a reboot a few years ago, Pierce speculated that such a reboot would never happen.) While his character's son is a regular on the new show, ensuring that both Nils and Daphne are mentioned in dialogue, Pierce has yet to see . And the actor publicly admitted that he chose not to appear on the show. So it makes the question even more pressing: What happened to Pierce after "Frasier" ended? Well, the short version is simple: for the most part, he chose to act on stage.

In a way, it makes perfect sense. Pierce is far from the only member of the "Frasier" cast to act on stage; even Grammer did a post-Frasier in the Broadway revival of Dirty Rotten Scoundrels that earned him a Tony nomination. But shortly after "Frasier" ended in 2004, Pearce jumped on another famous comic book property in the world of Monty Python. He portrayed Sir Robin, among other characters, in the original Broadway version of Spamalot, alongside cast members such as Tim Curry as King Arthur and Hank Azaria as Sir Lancelot. Of course, the presence of famous film and TV actors on stage is nothing new, but Pearce has come from 11 years of live performances (when you think about the type of humor and storytelling in "Frasier") to proving both his acting and singing chops at stage in the highly anticipated and widely loved stage musical. (It's also to Pearce's credit that you could easily see him playing King Arthur now that he's a bit older; he wouldn't just be typecast as a more cowardly type of character.) And unlike some famous actors and actresses who do scene show almost like tweeting, for Pierce, it became almost a second life for him. She won her first Tony Award not for Spamalot, but for the next Broadway show she starred in, Curtains.

While you might not know "Curtains" as instantly as you might recognize "Spamalot" from its origins in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," the 2006 musical had a pretty impressive set of people involved alongside Pierce, including the composing team of John Kander and Fred Ebb, best known for writing the score for the Broadway musical Chicago. In "Curtains," Pierce played a case detective to solve a murder backstage at a Boston musical while also indulging his own passion for musical theater.

Pierce would go on to work on Broadway afterward in shows like La Bete and the recent revival of Hello, Dolly!, starring Bette Midler. And what's more, Pearce returns to the stage this year in a new version of the iconic comedy operetta The Pirates of Penzance.

It's not that David Hyde Pierce has completely avoided appearing in film and TV since the end of "Frasier," but his choices have been few and far between and clearly speak to his own interests more than the need to work and collect a paycheck. Perhaps his most notable post-Frasier work was Max's recent series Julia, in which he played Julia Child's husband, Paul, as she launched her notable career as a celebrity TV chef in the mid-1960s. (Frasier fans will no doubt recall that one of the series' other regulars, Bebe Neuwirth, played Frasier Crane's ex-wife Lilith.) Although Pierce looked the same, if slightly older, on "Julia," the guy gave the character he played (a man who must contend with the fact that his wife becomes famous while his own artwork is ignored) a level of complexity that was not ever present in his excellent work on Fraser. Although the show was canceled after two seasons, he specifically felt like a breath of fresh air for audiences who may not have caught him in his other few appearances. (Most notable among those would be a recurring role on CBS's The Good Wife .) Of course, the other breath of fresh air was a reboot in itself, as Pierce did return to one of his better-known roles in Netflix's reboot of Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp" for several episodes, as well as the short-lived sequel "Ten Years Later".

David Hyde Pierce made himself a star as Niels Crane on "Frasier," and the fact that his Emmy-winning work feels like such an impossible standard for other actors to live up to speaks volumes for his quality as an actor. It's enviable to be one of the people who have seen him flourish on the Broadway stage for the past two decades, as the success of "Frasier" has allowed him to flex his muscles wherever he pleases. If you haven't caught him in quick TV appearances over the years, or in the indie thriller The Perfect Host (in which he plays something of a more murderous version of Niles), just know that he hasn't fallen off the map. completely and consider yourself lucky when he decides to hit the big or small screen again.