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By Ryan Smith
Senior Pop Culture & Entertainment Reporter
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Actor Ted Danson has revealed that he once got lost at NBC's New York City headquarters after experiencing a "full-fledged panic attack" while working on a show as a young actor.
During a recent episode of his podcast Where Everybody Knows Your Name, the Cheers star spoke with Saturday Night Live alum Bill Hader about the experience, which occurred back in the 1970s at 30 Rockefeller Plaza, now known as the Comcast Building.
"It is an amazing amount of nerves that flow through your body when you step out to do something live," Danson, 77, said. "I did a soap opera—in which I was horrible—for like nine months in New York."
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Danson explained that the unnamed show was "all but live, meaning, if you had a half-hour show, you had 35 minutes of that huge computer at NBC back then in the '70s that you could have your soap opera stored [on]. So... if a set fell down, maybe you could start again."
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The veteran screen star recalled that he had been hired to portray a ladies' man, who was "coming onto every person and smooth and all these things."
"The night before [shooting], I had my first full-fledged panic attack," he recalled. "I called this therapist... and I said, 'I'm not I'm not gonna go... This is too much.' And he said, 'No, no, don't cut off your nose. You want to do this. Take a Valium.'
"So I took a Valium—and I didn't realize Valium and me do not get along. I barely slept, but I had the Valium, and it was still in my system. And I go down to 30 Rock, or wherever it is, and I'm in the bowels of the building looking for where I'm supposed to go. Somebody recognizes me from something, I don't know a commercial, and goes, 'Hey, aren't you...?' And I started to run."
Danson said that his reaction "no sense whatsoever," adding: "I got lost in the bowels of NBC. The person didn't chase me—I was just running.
"Then I get up, and I'm doing this scene where I'm in a restaurant coming on to this woman... This is my first day. She's been on the show for, like, two years, and it was effortless for her. And I was [covered in] sheets of sweat.
"The producer looked and went, 'Nah, we'll make will make him the town sleaze. He'll turn in all his friends to the mafia. That's who he is."
Despite his early experiences, Danson went on to become a household name when he landed a role on NBC sitcom Cheers, which ran for 11 seasons from 1982. In the classic show, Danson played womanizer Sam Malone, who owned the Boston bar where the TV series was set.
In an October conversation on his podcast with The Good Place co-star D'Arcy Carden, Danson revealed that he had an emotional moment after shooting the pilot episode of Cheers—because he thought he was "so bad" in it.
"You know what I did when I saw the pilot? I pulled [Cheers co-creator] Jimmy Burrows aside, and I started crying because I thought I was so bad, and he looked at me for about two seconds and started laughing and walked away in the opposite direction."
In retrospect, Danson holds a deep appreciation for being a part of the iconic sitcom, which is considered to be one of the greatest TV comedies of all time.
"I had this moment years after where it dawned on me and I had this 'holy moly' moment, that I got to play Sam," Danson said.
The Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning show ran for 275 episodes before ending in 1993, and helped launch the careers of its stars, including Shelley Long, Woody Harrelson, Rhea Perlman, Kelsey Grammer, and the late Kirstie Alley.
It was revealed this week that Cheers would be getting a British reboot after a London-based company won the rights to adapt the comedy to the U.K. market.
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