Ted Danson is reflecting on walking away from his iconic character in "Cheers."

During a recent episode of his podcast, "Where Everybody Knows Your Name," the 77-year-old actor was asked by his guest, Charlie Day, if he ever worried about being typecast as an actor after playing such an iconic character for so long.

"First off, the transition was easy because I blew my personal life up so badly in that moment of leaving that it didn't even dawn on me that I had quite left ‘Cheers’ for months because I was just dealing with myself and my personal stuff," Danson said.

When asked if the work he was doing on himself in his personal life contributed to his decision to leave the show, Danson explained he thinks he chose to leave "because I went, 'I'm blowing s--- up in my life for the better.'"

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Danson starred on the beloved sitcom as Sam Malone from 1982 to 1993, becoming one of the few cast members to appear in all 273 episodes of the show. "Cheers" came to an end after 11 seasons, when Danson expressed his desire to pursue other acting opportunities, with executives deciding the show should not go on without him.

"I was changing for the better and working really hard at that, so I thought, 'Might as well jump completely off the cliff,'" he explained. "And [there was] a little bit of... if I don't leave now, I may not know if I could do anything else and I want to see if I can do any other stuff."

In terms of getting typecast, Danson shared that he believes it's "in your hands." While there will always be times "where critics or people don't want you to be" anything other than a specific character, he said that "if you don't pay any attention to that," the issue is easy to avoid.

When it came time to step away from Sam Malone, Danson admitted it wasn't as hard as it had been for some of the other characters he's portrayed on screen.

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"My job was to love every character in the bar. I regard unconditional love of everybody there, and that allowed the audience into that wacky world," he said. "That's how [creator James] Burroughs described it. So... it was easier to not be Sam Malone than probably it was some of the other characters."

Following his time on the show, Danson starred in a number of films and later as the lead in another successful sitcom, "Becker," which ran from 1998 to 2004. In 2000, he began playing a fictionalized version of himself on "Curb Your Enthusiasm," a role he would return to many times before the show's finale in 2024.

Most recently, Danson starred in the comedy "The Good Place" as a demon named Michael, a role which earned him three Emmy nominations, and is currently starring as Charles in Netflix's "Man on the Inside," which is based on a real-life story, chronicled in the 2020 documentary "The Mole Agent."

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"There's something inherently funny about a 76-year-old man who is a [retired] college professor, his life shut down, his daughter's worried, so she says, 'Get a project,' and he happens to whimsically find a project where he becomes an undercover spy in a retirement home," Danson told People in November 2024.

He continued, "We get to explore aging, all those things that, in this country, sometimes we're afraid to talk about, memory loss, everything, we broach with a tenderness and a seriousness still contained in a kind of light-hearted, joyful way."

Danson went on to say the role is special to him because, at 76 years old, he gets "to be part of this conversation, which is becoming more and more of my conversation in life."

The role earned him a Golden Globe nomination in 2025, the same year he received the coveted Carol Burnett Award at the show.

For more than two decades, Washington and New Delhi built a strategic partnership that was hailed as one of the great success stories of post–Cold War diplomacy. Today, that relationship is facing its most serious test in years — and India is signaling it has other options.

"We’re in a situation in the U.S.–India relationship where the premises and assumptions of the last 25 years — that everybody worked very hard to build, including the president in his first term — have just come completely unraveled," said Evan Feigenbaum, a South Asia expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "The trust is gone."

Since President Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on Indian imports, New Delhi has turned visibly eastward. India’s national security advisor traveled to Moscow in recent weeks, its foreign minister is visiting this week and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi just concluded talks in Delhi. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is preparing for his first trip to China in more than seven years, while Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to host him in Moscow before the end of the year.

The pivot underscores how tariffs meant to punish India for its continued purchases of Russian oil may instead be pushing New Delhi closer to America’s rivals.

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Trump slapped a 25% tariff on Indian imports earlier this year, citing India’s willingness to keep buying Russian crude. On August 27, that tariff is set to double to 50%.

Indian public opinion has bristled at what many see as U.S. interference in sovereign decision-making. "They’re signaling very clearly that they view that as interference in India’s foreign policy, and they are not going to put up with it," Feigenbaum said.

Despite initial hesitation, state-run refiners resumed Russian oil purchases, lured by discounts of 6–7%. Russian oil now accounts for 35% of India’s imports, up from a negligible 0.2% before the Ukraine war. Moscow, for its part, has seized the opening. "We continue to ship fuel, including crude oil and oil products, thermal and coking coal," said Russian First Deputy Prime Minister Denis Manturov. "We see potential for the export of Russian LNG."

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Russia is using the rift to promote its vision of a "great Eurasian partnership" linking Moscow, Beijing and Delhi.

"All of this engagement we’re seeing between India and China now is not exclusively coming because of Trump and his tariffs," said Michael Kugelman, a Washington-based South Asia analyst. "We’ve actually seen indications for almost a year of India wanting to ease tensions with China and strengthen relations, mainly for economic reasons. But the Trump administration’s policies have made India want to move even more quickly."

Some of India’s moves are diplomatic theater meant to signal anger at Washington. But others are more durable. "India is going to double down on some aspects of its economic and defense relationship with Russia," Feigenbaum said. "And those parts are not performative."

Kugelman noted that before the Ukraine war, India had already begun reducing its reliance on Russian arms imports in favor of U.S., French and Israeli systems. "But as soon as the invasion happened, India very quickly started buying more from Russia, particularly energy," he said. "This is essentially validation of a view in India that the U.S. can’t be trusted, whereas Russia can — because Russia is always going to be there for India no matter what."

Modi has used the standoff to reinforce his image at home as a defender of sovereignty. "India actually made a fair number of concessions to the Trump administration early on in its second term," Kugelman said, citing tariff reductions and agreements to repatriate undocumented workers. "Because of those concessions, India needs to be careful about signaling further willingness to bend. This is one reason there was no trade deal — Modi put his foot down."

While not directly criticizing Trump, Modi has emphasized that his priority is protecting the livelihoods of farmers, small businesses and young workers. That defiant tone, Kugelman added, has "real political mileage" in India’s domestic debate.

The Trump administration has shown no signs of backing down. Former White House trade advisor Peter Navarro blasted India’s oil purchases as "opportunistic" and "deeply corrosive" in a Financial Times op-ed this week.

"This two-pronged policy will hit India where it hurts — its access to U.S. markets — even as it seeks to cut off the financial lifeline it has extended to Russia’s war effort," Navarro wrote. "If India wants to be treated as a strategic partner of the U.S., it needs to start acting like one."

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The contrast with the U.S.–India relationship of two decades ago could not be starker. In 2008, the two countries struck a landmark civil nuclear deal that gave India access to American technology and fuel despite not being a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

"India put the entire government on the line for the deal," Feigenbaum recalled. "Bush really went to the mat and provided a lot of assurances to Congress that were politically not easy, but he was willing to take risks for the relationship."

At that time, Washington and Delhi managed to work around their disagreements. "The U.S. objected to many aspects of India’s relationships with Iran, Burma and Russia," Feigenbaum said. "India objected to aspects of the U.S. relationships with China and Pakistan. But neither side let that bleed back into the bilateral relationship in a completely debilitating way."

For years, the U.S. has viewed India as a democratic counterweight to China’s authoritarian model — central to its Indo-Pacific strategy under Obama, Trump and Biden. But now the question is whether that glue still holds.

"Both sides agree that countering China is the main glue that has really bound this relationship together over this 20-year period," Kugelman said. "But the tensions, most of which are on the trade side, have begun to spill over into the broader partnership."

He noted that India will continue to see China as a long-term competitor because of border disputes and Beijing’s alliance with Pakistan. "Those realities make it hard to imagine India no longer seeing China as a threat," he said. "So the rationale for the Quad remains. But if the U.S.–India relationship continues this free fall, it will be very difficult to sustain."

Talks on new defense cooperation are still on the calendar. But for now, Kugelman warned, trust has eroded: "You talk about defense cooperation, intelligence sharing — that requires a lot of trust. And given what’s happened over the last few months, that might be a harder sell for the Indians."

Feigenbaum sees India’s latest maneuvers as a reversal of past dynamics. "Then, India was leveraging its partnership to signal to then-foe China that it had options," he said. "Now they’re working with the Chinese to signal Washington rather than the other way around."

The message is clear: India will pursue its interests on its own terms, even if that means drawing closer to America’s rivals.