It's not easy being green -- or blue, apparently.

Ask Kelsey Grammer, who plays the furry blue Dr. Henry McCoy, otherwise known as the Beast, in ''X-Men: The Last Stand,'' the third installment of the popular comic-book-to-screen franchise that is out on DVD today.

''I've worn a nose before,'' notes the actor, who is best-known as TV psychiatrist Frasier Crane. That appendage was easier to get on than it was to endure the 2½ hours he spent each day becoming beastly during the shoot.

The 6-foot-1 Grammer says Matthew Vaughn, who was the original director, ''apparently sold them on me as the Beast. I think he was on to something. I'm kind of a big guy, and I'm known for what would be an intelligent approach to the work. It was a good match.''

And all that fur didn't prevent Grammer from having a good time while making the Brett Ratner-directed film, thanks to an outstanding cast. Patrick Stewart was an old friend who had worked on ''Frasier,'' plus there was Ian McKellen and Halle Berry, among others.

''We had the best times,'' he laughs, ''under six layers of latex.''

Grammer says the film was reviewed as though it were slicker than it should have been. It was the heart of the story -- which involved mutants being ''cured'' by a vaccine -- that attracted him.

''The Beast is a guy faced with a very difficult choice. He's a man who acquired his blueness, and his mutancy is very obvious and extreme. But his fascination with the possibility of him looking human again is something that is a real dilemma for him. I was drawn to that.''

But the actor -- who has been spending his time behind the camera recently producing and directing TV shows -- also had fun in the film's climactic battle scene.

''It was like a bunch of boys playing big games. ... When you had to duck from a flaming car, there was a sense of urgency about it.''

It's a far cry from the stage, which Grammer admits is his first love. But he, like millions of others, was a fan of ''X-Men,'' too -- ''the second movie more than the first. What's great about the story is that, whatever you are, you can probably decide that's what the characters are.

''You can relate if you are gay, or an arty type, or a nerd, or have been teased in school. If you ever felt like an outsider, then you identify with the mutants, and you can identify with the X-Men. So every human being on the planet can identify with the X-Men.''