“A Man on the Inside” star Ted Danson on aging: “Don’t slow down, just keep going, keep living your life”
Sitting down to talk about his new TV show, Ted Danson admits he is nervous. Why? “Because I want people to see it, I really do,” he said. “I think it’s an important conversation.”
It’s strange to think of Danson as nervous about anything, but in this case, it’s not hard to see why: his latest project means a lot to him, about a subject that touches everyone. In the new Netflix series “A Man on the Inside,” Danson is a recently-retired widower without much to do, until he answers an ad from a private investigator, and becomes a mole inside a nursing home.
Like a lot of TV series, the premise seems a little far-fetched, but this one’s true: it’s based on “The Mole Agent,” a 2020 documentary about a real-life 83-year-old who goes undercover in a Chilean nursing home looking for signs of patients being mistreated. What the documentary found was a group of elderly people fighting loneliness and loss with heart and humor.
Netflix
“A Man on the Inside” is no different, says series creator Mike Schur. “I would say the purpose of this show is simply to discuss a subject that very few people discuss, which is aging,” said Schur. “It’s this subject that we just don’t like to talk about. It’s thought of in this country (I think more than other countries) as something almost shameful or embarrassing.”
Oceana, an organization dedicated to preserving the world’s oceans. Asked if he feels they have made progress, he replied, “Yes. I mean, our focus is fishing, over-fishing, making sure that the fisheries of the world are healthy. Because if done right, you could feed a billion people a fish meal every day.”
CBS News
That sounds a little like a miracle – something he touches on in his new show, and something he says he lives with every day.
Asked what are the miracles in his life, Danson replied, “Mary Steenburgen is, you know, literally heaven-sent. I did some work on myself for about a year before I met her, after ‘Cheers,’ becoming emotionally mature and real. And I worked hard at it. And then along came Mary Steenburgen. … We are so blessed. To love somebody and to be loved, is just one of those heaven-on-earth miracles, you know? And that came with Mary.”
And the idea Ted Danson is hoping to share with his latest project is that miracles can be found in any life, right up until the very end. “This is your life,” he said, “not just up to, you know, 65 and then you retire and are going down. No, you get to live right up until you don’t live. And it’s your life. It’s such a gift. Explore it, and be excited about it. Yes, it hurts. Yes, it’s sad. Yes, there’s grief. Yes, there’s all of that. But embrace it. Embrace it, is kind of what I think the message of the show is. It’s what I hope I live with.”
He got emotional sharing that. “I’m just emotional ’cause I finally said something I wanted to say!” he laughed.
To watch a trailer for “A Man on the Inside,” click on the video player below:
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Story produced by John D’Amelio. Editor: Steven Tyler.
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Source: cbsnews.com