Breaking Bread with Tom Papa - Episode 252 - Jason Alexander

Episode Date: February 25, 2025

This week on Breaking Bread the multi-talented Jason Alexander joins us in the studio! Tom and Jason take a deep dive into Jason’s career - from becoming a professional actor at the age of 15 to the “trifecta” - they discuss how Jason navigated it all! But the real question is - who knows Jerry Seinfeld better - Tom or Jason? Enjoy!  Check out more Jason Alexander on his podcast “Really, No, Really.” and his upcoming film, The Electric State that comes out in March 14. For a limited time, Wildgrain is offering our listeners $30 off the first box - PLUS free Croissants in every box - when you go to Wildgrain.com/PAPA to start your subscription. Get 40% off your first order with Trade at https://www.drinktrade.com/papa ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 0:00:00 Intro 0:03:24 Wild Grain Ad 0:04:23 Welcome & game shows 0:05:00 New Jersey and falling into career track 0:09:00 Professional acting at 15 0:10:33 Fate = luck and ability 0:12:15 Father 0:17:10 Mother 0:19:00 Loving magic as a kid 0:22:22 'As Long as You're Asking' show 0:25:20 Theater in New York in the 80s 0:25:33 Pretty Woman & Seinfeld 0:27:00 Seinfeld taking off 0:30:05 Finding out George was Larry David 0:31:50 Don't give Larry notes 0:35:00 Jason within George 0:36:35 Navigating fame 0:38:55 Jay VS Jason 0:41:47 Wild Grain Ad 0:43:46 Trade Coffee Ad 0:45:07 Creating so many laughs 0:50:00 Using comedy to build bridges 0:54:20 One Voice 0:57:40 Baking Bread 0:58:40 Kids live in the neighborhood 1:02:15 Being a grandfather 1:04:00 Kids being funny 1:05:00 Life after Seinfeld 1:07:10 Therapy and finding true self 1:17:54 Uncomfortable moment 1:19:00 Wanted to do drama originally 1:23:36 'Really No Really' Podcast 1:24:55 Taste test 1:27:15 Toilets 1:29:15 Working with Jerry 1:40:10 Goodbyes Tom Papa is a celebrated stand-up comedian with over 20 years in the industry. Watch Tom's new special "Home Free" out NOW on Netflix! Radio, Podcasts and more: https://linktr.ee/tompapa/ Website - http://tompapa.com/ Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/tompapa Tiktok - https://www.tiktok.com/@tompapa Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/comediantompapa Twitter - https://www.twitter.com/tompapa #tompapa #breakingbread #comedy #standup #standupcomedy #bread #jasonalexander #seinfeld  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Oh, this is exciting. I'm excited about this one. Jason Alexander. Come on, come on. You know, sometimes I think the show's maybe getting too good. It might be just getting a little too. I'm very excited. He's a Jersey boy who hit a big.

An actor from New Jersey, which really warms my heart. of course you know him as George from Seinfeld it's kind of crazy to even say that right is there anybody in the world that wouldn't know that I don't right nobody you should be listening to this

yeah really crazy a great great person this is my first time meeting him and I won't pretend I already did the interview so that's why I'm a little giddy I can pretend that it hasn't happened but I respect you all too much.

We just wrapped up and he was great. Do I go too long? I might have gone too long. Yeah, all right, because we could have kept going, but it was definitely, there was so much there and he's such a thoughtful, cool guy. That was really great. I really had a great time.

And I don't know. There's something, the first time I ever saw him interviewed after the show, you knew there was a depth there. Right? Like you got used to just the Jason sitcom version. And the first time you see him, and it's so stupid,

but I mean, it's kind of like the ultimate compliment is you just believed him so much that you saw him kind of like not on and just talking intelligently and thoughtfully about something. You're like, oh, of course. He's not just running around like that all the time. And that's why this conversation is so great.

He really dives into a lot of different areas and is so great and funny. And I think you're really going to enjoy it. Let's compliment the bread. That was a good bread. First time that my wife had to get involved because I was on the road. And this is a big solve for us, Rachel. We used to have to get bread from people from stores if it was too late. But now I can make my...

my wife do it. And then I just bake it at the end. It's pretty great. All right, everybody, enjoy. Oh, go to tompapa.com. I've got shows all around the country. The show, the tour officially just kicked off in Cleveland. And now we're off to the Moore Theater in Seattle. We're going to the Chicago Theater. First time at the Chicago Theater, the Beacon, San Francisco, Florida, all over the place. We have so many shows and only have posted up to June and that can be found at tompapa.com. You guys are the best. Now listen to my conversation with the great Jason Alexander. It's time for breaking bread with Papa.

Hey! Don't you know? Hey. It's how we go. Hey. It's time for breaking bread with Papa. Hey. Don't you know?

Hey. It's also a show. Hey. This episode of Breaking Bread. Bread with Tom Papa is brought to you by Wild Grain. Wild Grain is the first bake-from-frozen subscription box for artisanal breads, pastas, pastries, yum. Are you ready to bring all your favorite carbs right to your doorstep?

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You'll get over it so quickly. You'll really, your heart will come down to a normal pace. No, this makes me so happy. It really does. We've never met. No, we haven't. I was supposed to do, you might still have a game show. Oh, I had it.

I was supposed to do the game show. That's right. I don't know why that fell apart. But no, we've been circling each other. Do you like doing game shows? I like games. I like playing games. Oh, you know what?

That's so funny. It just hit me. I did $100,000 pyramid last week. And the big clip that they show is you winning and just like exploding with joy. And it was your enthusiasm that made me think, oh, this could be fun. I had a run on pyramid years ago. I think John Davidson was the host. So that'll tell you like when it was happening.

Uh-huh. I went to the winner circle five times in a row. Whoa. And hit four times. Whoa. And it was back then the celebrity could get the contest. would choose whether they wanted to give or receive and I was giving every time.

Right. And I had my glasses on so I could see the board. Right. They brought the judges out to see if there was any way you could see the reflection because they went, this is uncanny. You've won it and then the fifth time they notched it up so that there was no way. Impossible.

But yeah, that was fun. Oh, it's really fun. I have a real affinity for you and your career because growing up in New Jersey, you were born Newark. I was born in Newark. People seemed to, like when I met Corrie, when I met Corrie, he went, oh, hey, Newark. And I was gone in five minutes. My mother was a nurse and she worked at Newark, Beth Israel. Right. So she had privileges there. And so that's why I was born.

That's where you're born. Yeah. Yeah, I grew up in Irvington, Maplewood and Livingston. Maplewood and Livingston. All Jersey. Yeah. But the, I grew up in North Jersey. Yep. Uh, Wycliffe Lake and Park Ridge and, and, and, and, I could see the Empire State Building from my bedroom, like in the distance. You had a much better view. Yeah, it was a pretty good view. And but as a kid who was like interested in comedy and acting and all that stuff, seeing the city and dreaming of what you're going to do in New Jersey,

you had the same thing just being a kid. And like I know your DNA and you're longing to get into that city. And you really put together what I daydreamed of the perfect career. of being in theater and then hitting it on TV and then being able to do whatever you want, coming back to theater. Like, that is the New York story. Yeah, the only thing I would amend is I didn't put anything together. I flopped into one thing.

I've been led by the nose throughout my entire career. Yeah. But yeah, what was, once I fell in with the theater kids, which is around 12 or 13 years old, because I loved theater as an audience member, but I didn't think, myself ever as being a performer, although I wanted to do magic, but I wasn't really thinking of it as performing. But when I moved from Maplewood to Livingston, the first kids that picked me up with the theater kids. And I never really had a community because I wasn't a sports kid. I was kind of like the short, fat kid that the bullies like to go, oh, he'll be fun to punch. He'll be fun for the afternoon.

We'll roll him down the block. But when I found the theater kids, I went, ooh, I like living in the space. and they would go to the theater because it was a 35-minute bus ride from Livingston into the city. I think the bus was a dollar each way. It was no big deal. And you could, at that time, this is the early 70s,

if you were a student, you could stand at any Broadway show that had standing room available for a dollar. Wow. So we would go in and see two shows on Saturday. We'd have dinner at Tad Steaks in Times Square. For eight bucks, you had a five, course, there was meat. I don't know what kind of meat it was, but it was. So funny to picture

like kids with just their knives and forth. You know, we're ready to go. And then sometimes we come back on Sunday. So I saw everything and I just, as I started to realize that acting was something I wanted to do, my whole goal was how do I get into this city and work here. Yeah. I had no fantasies at all about any kind of career as an actor outside of that. Nothing, television, nothing film. That wasn't the thing I fantasized in the living room. So, Yeah. What age is this like? Well, so I kind of met these kids when I was 12.

Okay. The bug hit me pretty hard. And by sheer folly and circumstance, I was a professional actor by the time I was 15. I started doing my first stuff then. So I made my Broadway debut when I was barely 20 years old. Yeah. It all happened nicely. Yeah.

So you decided like these kids are cool, but. but I'm not going to do your plays. I'm going to the big time right away. I'm not going to hang out in high school and do your... Actually, it fell. It fell. I was doing anything I could get my hands on in Jersey, and there was a...

It's still there, by the way. I'm pretty sure I'm still there. A little children's theater group called Pushcart Players. Uh-huh. And they did original musicals for children. Great. And I was fooling around with them, and somebody said, hey, this would be great on TV.

And they hired us. That's how I had joined the union so I could actually shoot a pilot. I was 14 or 15 years old and I shot this pilot. And they couldn't sell it as a series, but they got it on some, you know, like WPIX, Channel 11 on a Sunday morning at 8 o'clock. Amazing. These managers in New York that only handled kids and teens saw it and went, ooh, we like this kid.

And they hunted me down and I started working with them. And that's how I fell. Yeah. I mean, literally, when I say I didn't. I could not have planned most of what happened for me. It's so great. You know, these things would pop up and I was savvy enough to go, don't say no to this.

Do you carry any kind of, lack of a better word, any feelings of fate or some mystical kind of this was supposed to happen, kind of, especially if it was that kind of a course where you kind of fell into things and the path kind of led you, and you finding the path. Here's what I know as a performer and a poker player. Nothing good happens without some combination of ability, but I know so many people that have huge ability,

many surpass my own. They don't get the second ingredient, which is a good dollop of luck. And I was lucky enough to have just enough ability when an opportunity presented itself that I could snag it. Right. But it's that luck thing. My Broadway debut was Hal Prince and Stephen Sondheim looking for teenagers to play adults in the original production at Mary Lee were all along. Well, I'm third year of college.

I'm starting to lose my hair, but I'm 19 years old. Right. And they go, wow, we just found our guy. And, you know, had I had a full head of hair, I might not have gotten that show, but I had the bald spot happening. Yeah. And I grew up. My parents were older. So my dad was kind of the guy I was playing.

He was a rough around the edges, cigar smoking. Hey, kid, how you doing? And that's what they wanted that role for. Right. So, you know, lots of talented actors went up for that role. I just happened to have the DNA at that moment. So it is wild. I really do think there's something at hand.

There's something, right, that just kind of, what was your dad's career? We'd like to thank the good people at Quince for sponsoring today's program. If you spend a lot of time cooking at home, it's time to elevate your game. When your cookware actually feels good to use and is thoughtfully made and looks beautiful on your counter, it just makes the whole experience better. That's what I've really liked about Quince. Their cookware, knives, and tableware are elevated, but they're still super practical. Everything is made to last, designed to be seen, and honestly priced one.

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That's Quince, Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash Papa, P-A-P-A. for free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash Papa. It depends when you're asking. You're asking? My dad, and I don't even know, I don't know what's true and what's not true. My dad was 50 years old when I was born.

He was a second marriage. He was a widower. He found my mother, and my mother was 40 when she got married. 40-year-old women did not have babies in 1958. Yeah. She got pregnant. And so I was quite the surprise. My dad in his day supposedly spent a little time in his childhood helping the Jewish mafia in the Lower Southern New York.

I don't know exactly what that means. He said he was able to, he knew enough cops and judges so that when a guy got arrested on Thursday night, nobody was going to see him until Tuesday of the next week. But he could go in and go, there's 50 bucks, let him out. I love that. He was an insurance salesman in my lifetime. He was a New York, New Jersey transit bus driver for many years in my lifetime. He worked for Bell Laboratories, a guy that never went to college as a manager at Bell Laboratories. He ended his working life as a accounts manager at a brush manufacturing company.

I mean, he was all over the place. Did he have a big gregarious personality? Yeah. He could just... He was a pug. My dad was a pug. If he could have been a person, he could have been a person. professional boxer, I think he would have loved that.

Yeah. Was he strong? He was unbelievably strong. Now, he wasn't much bigger than me. You know, I'm five, my height, because I've shrunk, I was five, six at my height. I think that was probably top for my dad, too. Right. And he's kind of built like me.

But I once saw him when I was seven or eight years old. There was a blizzard in New Jersey. My mother had parked her 195 Dodge Dart on the street. there was a blizzard. The plows came through and they basically put a snowbank up against her car. But she worked the emergency room of the hospital. So she felt like, I got to get to work. He dug out a way to get in the car

and he's trying to rock the car back. And he can't get out of this snowbank. And he gets pissed. And I'm watching through the picture window as my dad goes and lifts the front end of the car over the snowbank and goes and lifts the back end of the car over the snowbank and goes, get out of here. And I went, okay, don't mess with dad.

But he had that kind of strength. My older son has inherited that kind of style. Really? Same thing. But it jumped my generation. Yeah. Well, that's why you're funny. I'm barely getting this cup off there.

Yeah, my dad is similar. My dad is like these just arms. And he's just like, and also that generation. Right. Banging around New Jersey. Yeah. No money. Right.

Today were tough. These guys are tough. And your dad never wore a jacket in the winter. Right. Dad went there, my father's out there in shirt sleeves. Yeah, exactly. And I think his. I think for me, and it sounds kind of similar, him being like a, he was loving, but an intense guy, like a strong intense guy.

I think that helped make me funny because you're constantly looking to release tension around the house. Yeah, there was no tension in my house. You know, the one thing I'll say about both of my parents, they were older parents. And so, you know, they didn't roll the way a lot of my friends' parents rolled. but the one thing I learned in my own parenting is you can make a lot of mistakes if your children know you absolutely adore them and I knew my parents adored me right every fiber of their being I had my father who was he could be a very very um you didn't want him as an enemy right wrapped around my little finger he would have crawled across flaming glass if I asked him really really so you know I knew him as a pussycat and my

my half-brother, who is no longer with us, who was 20 years my senior, uh-huh. Um, it was a very different kind of guy than I am. Yeah. And he was very much like the way my father was as a younger man. Mm-hmm.

Which was not easy to get along with him. Right. A different time. At, at my dad's funeral, I said to my brother, you know, you and I are different, not because we had different mothers. We had different fathers. Right. Right.

I got the best of them. Right. You know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Different time when he's all, yeah, different guy.

Yeah. What was your mom like? My mom was. kind of an amazing woman, especially in her time. She was born in 1920 and got it in her head in college that she wanted to be a doctor at a time when Jewish women, first of all, women had a hard time getting in the mid school. Jewish women had an even hard time getting in the mid school. She was right there. She had been accepted and then her father passed away and she couldn't afford it. So she became a nurse and she was a nurse and a nurse educator all her life. She created and ran one of the biggest schools

nursing in Livingston, New Jersey out of St. Barnableness. She was tough. Yeah. She was funny. She was a sophisticated lady in her own way. She was the funny one. She was no nonsense. She was the breadwinner in our family. Oh, yeah. And she was, you could have a good time with her. Right. But she knew where the line was and you don't cross it. What kind of funny was she? Both my parents were good storytellers. They couldn't tell a joke to save their lives, but they were really good storytellers. and they appreciated humor. So I was exposed to a lot of funny people because they would seek them out.

They had comedy albums, but I would go to the Catskills with them and see the best of the best of the day. They watched Ed Sullivan diligently and all the best comics were doing. Amazing. So they exposed me to a lot of funny people. That's amazing.

Yeah, just that timing just starts to seep in. Yeah, my mother could tell a good story. She knew how to structure it, and she knew it. And I said, you know, she had the music and she had the pause and she had the thing. Yeah. Oh, it's amazing. You loved magic when you were a kid? Yeah.

I was very serious about it from about six to 13. Nice. And not, the reason why I say I never thought of myself as a performer was I felt because I was such an easily bullied kid and my sibling, I didn't grow up with my siblings. They were out and in their lives by the time I was. Right. So I was a latchkey kid. I was more or less an only kid. I was a heavy kid.

I had no obvious talents. So I felt kind of disproportionately frightened in life and powerless. And the notion that, oh, I can do something with my hands that makes others look at me in a sort of elevated way seemed intriguing. And so I was very serious about magic. And I wanted to be the guy who could put things in his hands. And I wanted to be the close-up guy. Give me cards, give me coins, give me things. Yeah.

And I'll do miraculous things with them. Mm-hmm. I went to Lutannon's Magic Camp when I was 12. Where was that? In New York. It was basically in the back of Lug Tannen's store. It was a great magic show. There's no camp about it.

There's no campfires. We have color wars. You know. Yeah. And, you know, the magician that was teaching close-up looked at my hands. And to this day, I have, you know, I have a two-year-old grandson. His hands are almost as big as much. And he said, you're just going to struggle with this because your hand, I cannot palm a standard-sized playing card. Wow. If something peaks out. And, like, coin slates that would be easy for someone who had just another half an inch of finger to work with, I struggle with. And he just went, it's going to be hard for you.

So I, you know, I started doing other kinds, and I started looking at escape magic, and I can do a few escape things. Yeah, yeah. But I knew I wasn't the box guy. I'm not going to stand there with the beautiful girl going, yeah. Yeah. Sorry to find lions and tigers in New Jersey. So, you know, I kind of went, oh, crap, it's not going to be magic.

And that's when we moved. And that's when the theater kids picked me up. And I went, oh, this is an illusion. This whole thing is an illusion. Maybe I can do that. But that was my only thing, was magic. And it's, you know, I have never really left it. Back when the Magic Castle was struggling,

I was a guest performer for a week. And I put enough thought and talent into that act that I won magician of the year for that performance room. You did? Legitimately. I actually thought, yeah, they're not just giving it to me. I worked my ass off. Had you kept the tricks going, like, just to play around?

They had never done before. They had asked me, they were near bankruptcy. and they needed some help. And I was not a performing member of the castle. Right. But I was there one night and I was doing some pocket tricks. And some of my magic friends went, you know, you have some juice on this. You could do something.

And the board of the castle said it would really help us out if you would do a week. And so I developed an act based on mentalism illusions that I was presenting as well as an actor. I study people and I'm doing it that way. everything had a premise everything had like oh maybe maybe he really can do that you know yeah yeah um and the first night i did it was the first night i did it i mean i i've been building it in my in my house and my the first two rows of my first audience were all mentalist magicians that i knew and i went oh this this is this cannot bode well they knew every trick i was doing but wait how did you know all these mentalists magicians because

i've been a part of them i've been in the magic community I know these guys. I go to the castle. You just still loved it. You would just go as a fan. Oh, sure. I was a hobbyist magician. Oh, okay.

But I did the act, and they came running backstage, and they went, it's fantastic. And then they started giving me technical tips about do this here, do that here, do this here. Wow. So I kept my hand in it, but that's pretty great. It's still a love. Yeah. And my grandson, I have a trick that he makes him very happy. Oh, yeah.

Cappy. It's the top of a, it's the cap of a cue tip thing. of a chapstick thing. And he blows it and it disappears and it goes all over the house and we go hunting for it. Amazing. That's amazing. Yeah. This could also be a good one-man show like when you're older and you just want to go like tour one more time.

One of the reasons I was happy to get out of magic is it scares the crap out of me. Why? Because there's no covering it when it's blown. Mm-hmm. And I was never secure enough in it. You know. Yeah. want to do 10,000 hours of a magic act.

Yeah. And then go, okay, now I got it. Right. But for me, I was never that. So every time I was doing it, I go, oh, that, come on, I just blew it. I just blew it. They can see what I do. I never had the confidence in it. But let me build the one-man show. It's you, you're telling stories. This is like, you know, you're... Well, I do one. I do one. Yeah. And you throw a little magic in. There is one area where they can ask about magic. So I do a show called, as long as you're asking. Okay. And it is,

it's a Q&A show with entertainment pieces, but it is different every time because there's 30 areas where I go, you can ask me about any of these, or if you're dying to know something that's not up here, just ask me, I don't know if I don't ask it, but these things I have stories for and, you know. Yeah.

And, but on any given night, there's only time for seven, eight of them at the most. Right. But there is one that has magic. And if they hit on that, they can have a great magic trick. Yeah, yeah.

But the rest of it is a story, some funny, some less, some musical, some, you know. But all with a little bit of I learned something in this, maybe you'll get something out of this. Right, right, right. That's cool. And what did you do with it? Did you tour it? I don't tour it per se. I have an agent who just sells that show.

It's usually corporate nights. It can be performing arts centers. It can be an organization is doing a big charity thing and they want entertainment for that evening. It's a solid 90 minutes. Nice. It seemingly has not missed yet. That's great. Seemingly, we haven't had anybody go, wow, that's crap.

All right, then let me continue with my fantasy of you being old and doing it. You start to, you start to, your brain isn't firing off as well as it used to, and you start pushing the magic. And every question leads to more magic. Sure. Yeah. Who's coming to this exactly in your fantasy? You're playing nursing homes. You're just kind of touring.

You know, I'm talking about the end. This is like at the end. I like an audience where I can start by going, what did you think, folks? And they think they saw me do something. That's great. Tadda. That's my entrance.

Your first word. Goodbye everybody. Tadda. How long did you bang around New York and theater and stuff? The theater. in New York was solidly my career all through the 80s. All through the 80s. And, you know, I would do a little thing on TV here and there

and occasionally I'd pick up a little thing in a movie. But it was theater and commercials. And for me, I was like, I'm living my dream. This is great. In 1989, I was doing a show called Jerome Robbins Broadway, and I won a Tony Award from it. And I don't know if that had anything to do with it, but it was the beginning of what I call the trifecta.

So it was the Tony Award. Pretty Woman, Seinfeld. All happened within about a 16-month period. Jeez. Man, oh, man. And the world took a left turn, and I went, oh, I guess I'm doing this now. And at each one of those, did you think, well, it's not going to get better than this? Yeah.

Pretty Woman. Also, I never had expectations of it. I had, when I tell the story sometimes in the one-man show, when we were shooting Pretty Woman, it was a little bit of a debacle because the script was a kind of. serious affair. Yeah. But Gary Marshall was putting us through improvisational jumps and, you know, we all had a great time. We had a great time. Yeah. You cannot not have fun on a Gary Marshall film. Oh God. That must have been a dream. And Julia was wonderful and Richard was wonderful and, you know, Larry Miller was there. You know, it's just a lot of fun people. Yeah. But we went to the route party going,

I don't think they have a movie because we couldn't see the forest for the trees. Wow. So I had no expectations on pretty woman. Jeez. And when we did the Seinfeld pilot, which again, I thought was wonderful, but I remember being at the rap party with Jerry and he went, what do you think? And I went, no way.

He said, you don't think it's good? I said, no, I do think it's good. That's your problem. This show is for me, it's for guys 21 to 35 years old. They don't watch television. I don't watch television. Alf is the number one show on TV. No one's going to switch up. No one's going to this. There's no audience for this. And I was kind of right. That was the demo that really sparked to it when we had very small ratings. And because it was that demo, there were advertisers always willing to get behind it because they couldn't get to that demo except on sports shows.

Right. So and then somehow, as Jerry and Larry and the gang really got their feet on them themselves, the show started to stretch out its appeal to much older. people, much younger people, other countries, all ethnicities, things that I went, no one's going to get this. Yeah. They suddenly started to get it. Right. How did, Jerry has that blown up letter from the focus group. Yeah.

When I was working with him in his office, it was over the toilet. But it's just like big, giant letter of why this show is horrible and will never work. Yeah. Oh, what a perfect thing to have in your. At what point do you realize, oh, this is a hit. This is going to be, or at least we're going to, we're not sweating the next pickup. Yeah, I think it was all somewhere in the third season. A couple things happened.

I think that's the season where we did the contest. And that was a phenomenon. And I was well aware, if we pull this off, this is a phenomenon because it was so taboo. Yeah. and done so well. And if you go back, the story I've always heard is that if you go back and you watch the Nielsen ratings as that was airing, the number by the end of the episode was triple the number at the beginning. And the number on the West Coast was triple the number on the East Coast, which means that as it was airing,

people were on the phone going, turn on Channel 4, Turn on Channel 4, you won't believe this. And that sort of made everyone so aware of us, and they kept coming back. Right. We knew that. But for me, and I've told the story before, I think it was in that third season. I hadn't been doing publicity for the show because I was watching it. But I was doing entertainment tonight.

And we were walking on the street to get B-roll. So it's just, you know, the woman that was interviewing me and we're walking down the street. And as a van went by, there was a black family in the van. And a little girl that I put at maybe 10 years old, maybe, I don't know, she went by kind of quickly. but she leaned out the window and yelled, I love you, George. And I went, what the hell is she watching? How is this little girl watching our show?

Nothing on our show should strike her as fun or funny or familiar. And yet, and that's when I went, oh, I'm not aware of, this is doing something I'm not fully aware of. That's so cool. And that was the beginning for me. How searching was it for your character, or were you pretty locked in from the beginning? No.

Well, in a way. Again, for any of you that have heard me tell these stories before, forgive me, they, they, they, they have no way to augment them. Tell them. When the, when Jerry and Larry started looking for actors in New York, feeling that they had, you know, done everything they could do in L.A., and they, they had found some people they liked, but they didn't make a deal. They couldn't make a deal. So they reached out to New York, and I was one of maybe 30 actors that got put on tape without the presence of Jerry or Lari. So we got sent a couple of pages from the pilot script. No context, no nothing.

And I'm reading this scene. I know Jerry is Jerry and I knew who Jerry was. And I went, I think this is like a Woody Allen thing. So I just went, hey, do Woody Allen. That's where the glasses came from. I didn't wear glasses at the time. And forget the New York accent. I was doing his blatant as Woody Allen as I possibly could

and thinking, well, nothing's going to come of this. Yeah. And about a week later, Larry called. Larry and Jerry maybe. And they said, we're going to fly you out, read for the network, read with Jerry. Love everything you're doing. Just maybe not quite so obviously Woody Allen inflection, but the New York thing is great. Okay.

And I go out and I meet the guys and I read at NBC. By the time I get back, I've got the thing. So I go into the series with Woody Allen in my head. Right. Thinking it's a, you know, Woody Allen prototype. Yeah. Somewhere, not in the first season, because the first season was a whopping four episodes. Four episodes.

But somewhere in that confidence 13. There was an episode, I can't remember what it was. But when we did the table read, I thought the George storyline was a little preposterous. I just thought it's a weird thing, never going to happen. And they've got me reacting to it in this strange way. Yeah. So after the table read, I went up to Larry and I said, Larry, you got help me with this. you're going for something

and I want to get it for you. Because we both know this would never happen in life and if it did, nobody would react like this. So what are you thinking? And Larry said, I don't know what you're talking about. This happened to me. It's exactly what I did. And in my head I went,

oh, I, oh, George is Larry, Larry is George. And in that moment, yeah. I, because I, I, I, I've always loved finding a real life role model of a character I'm doing and trying to take as much of the physical and the, the verbal and the, like your dad back in the, yeah, back in the thing. So I started really looking at Larry and trying to incorporate his ticks and his rhythms and some of his, you know, what I thought of as his, um, personality quirks. Right. into George and

and I think he knew. Yeah. We never talked about it. But I think he knew that I finally knew that he knew that I knew. And it made the whole journey much easier because anytime I didn't understand something on the page, I go, oh, but Larry. And had great, great fun looking at it through that lens all that. How was he? I mean, he's so cantankering.

and he tried to quit the show. He was panicked. You hear all the stories how he would try and dread every time it got picked up. And what was that presence like on set? I mean, you're looking at him as like your muse in a way, but there's also, that's a lot of anxiety on a set.

To be completely honest. And to Larry's credit, that's all true. But most of that was contained to the writer's room in the production office. Uh-huh. It was rare that he was on the set going, It can't be done!

I mean, once or twice that did happen. You know, where his anxiety level would, or his, the thing I was privy to a couple times was, and then everybody learned, don't do this. But when the studio or the network would give him notes, and you go, all right, I quit, you know, and Jerry would run out in the parking lot and go, don't you can't quit. And then, honestly, people went. Don't give him notes. And that was sort of the magic of the show. People went, they're going to do what they're going to do. So just let them do it.

Just leave it. But what I always loved about Larry and was very much part of how I approached George, was I always loved Larry's awareness and sense of humor about the two things in his personality that don't go together. this amazing sense of worthlessness and personal devaluation sitting side by side with an ego that goes, I'm not getting my due. And that's kind of what George is.

Larry would be, I had a brilliant, it was brilliant, my 10 minutes was brilliant, and they did. You know, everybody was better. I mean, you know, it's this weird combo platter It's a great combination. Of two ends of the spectrum.

And when you point it out to him, or when he realizes it, he also finds it really crazy funny. That's the charm of the man in the character. My wife used to say to me, because she came to the first 100 episode. And Dana and I studied with the same guy. She's not an actress, but she knows my process. And I'd do a take, and she'd go, and she'd call me over, and she'd go, yeah but George has a sense of humor about it.

Which would remind me that yes, in the moment he's all, they're not giving me Ted dancing money? Who's Ted dancing? Right. But she said it's also, there's a part of him that goes, you're being a real idiot right now. And when I could remember that, and to me that's kind of Larry,

I always, people would always ask me about Larry and I go, I find him, I love his heart. I really do. I think he works very hard to be a curmudgeon. Not that he doesn't feel those things, but he doesn't act out on them the way his curb version of Larry does. What percentage of you is in there?

Of me? In George? Yeah. I think it's more perception. I mean, I do know what it is to be the butt of the joke and to be the little guy going, how much of this do you eat and how much of this do you rail against?

Yeah. I tend to think George is more the product of my observational abilities rather than my sensibilities. I have found, and it's not always something I'm proud about, and I've actually tried to mitigate it over the years, I would push back verbally about things that I thought were false or trying to diminish me, but not the reactions that George has,

the vitriol and hysterics. I think I come from a, don't make a scene. Yeah. You know, background. Right. At the times, yeah, at the times when I've planted a flag

and had a discussion slash argument with people. Yeah. Sure, there are shades of George's, I'm not going to take this lion down. Yeah, yeah. but my behaviors are not Georgia's behaviors. And I think if they were, I wouldn't have been able to use them.

I think they would have been, I wouldn't have known to use them. Right. The parts of me that I, that I have actually called on to use and creating other characters are not necessarily funny parts. I wouldn't know how to use them.

Right, right, right. How fun was it when it starts to hit and you're famous? parts of it are great it must have been really fun just banging around LA well especially for a guy who you know

felt unseen and invisible and frightened and undervalued yeah to suddenly have this sense of false value you know hello therapy welcome welcome to my life

there had to be a couple moments of believing it yeah what was fun was having security. That was fun. Having, and this is what still remains, people would greet me with a sense of

Hail Brother Well Met. You've given me something, we enjoy each other. It's this, it's not real, but it's a perceived familiarity and friendship and like. That's terrific. what I was never comfortable with and had to spend a lot of time in therapy to reckon with and figure out how to deal with

was a sense that I owe these people something that I have to be something that I'm not. Jason in and of himself. So my real name is Jay. My mother always called me Jason. So when I took a stage name, Jay became Jason. But I can tell you from years and years of therapy, decades of therapy.

Jay is a very serious, quiet, somewhat introverted guy. And that's, I'm far more comfortable there. Yeah. Jason is the guy who has a bigger personality, lives life outside of that house and outside of his inner circle, and can look people in the eye when they go, oh, I loved your work. Jay goes, oh, okay, well, thank you.

That's right nice. Jay goes, oh, thank you. I'm glad it, you know, but that persona, that ability to greet people like that had to be worked on. And it was the one that with fame, before I could find the balance between what was authentic and what I thought had to be, it was a very uncomfortable place for me to live in as well. It's another role. It's another role. And it, and, and, Who does your wife live with? The best of both. Because there are parts of Jason that make Jay tolerable.

Right, right. Jason's personality and sense of adventure does not exist in Jay. Right. Jay would never leave the house. He's not going on dates. Jay would only talk about the most serious stuff. Jay's heart was important. But Jason's ability to enjoy the world.

and be grateful and participant in the blessings of it. Right. You need it. You need, it's like, you know, I was a big Star Trek guy. Yeah. And there's an episode where Kirk is split into two halves, and it's like the aggressive one and the, you know, compassionate one. Yeah.

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Oh, finally, finally, we love coffee. That's one of our favorite things here. We're always drinking it. I don't know if I'd even survive without it. In the 70s, people used illegal substances to get through show business. I drink coffee. Sometimes I'm so happy to go to bed at night because I know I'm going to wake up the morning and get to start drinking more coffee. I love coffee. It's the best thing in the world. And trade coffee is a great company. They're the number one U.S. specialty coffee marketplace that brings you fresh coffee from over 50 of the country's top roasters. And right now, trade is exclusively, exclusively offering our listeners 40% off your first order at drinktrade.com slash Papa. That's Drink Trade, T-R-A-D-E dot com slash Papa, for 40% off your first order.

If you want to support this podcast and make yourself happy, go there, order some coffee from drinktrade.com slash Papa, and you will be happy, our podcast will be happy, and truth be told, we'll probably get more coffee. I was thinking on the ride over here. And it's not a really formulated thought, but I think it is. It's such a cool thing that you've made so many people. This is about the people appreciating you and always saying thank you. You've had so many laughs.

For a long time, for the nine years doing the show, you had people laughing every single week. Yeah. You were making people. millions of people, so much greater than today on a TV show. So many millions of people laugh every single week. And then you wrap that up. And then every day since then, now they're watching it multiple times. You can't get away from Seinfeld. It's everywhere. If you do all of the math of how many laughs you have generated in America, even beyond America, but just with the public, the number of times you made human beings laugh.

from when you're actively doing it to the repeats of it doing it. I think, and again, I'm not a mathematician, but you're one of the funniest people on the planet. Oh, that's very kind. That's very kind. How, I mean, I'm talking to Jason, not Jay. Yeah. But Jay has to listen a little bit.

What a great, great thing that you are one of the people that made all those people laugh. That's insane. Here's how I will respond to it. And again, if you've seen me on another podcast or getting trod ground. but my mom when I was growing up would always say you know sweetie what I

wish for you no matter where life takes you is that you live a life of service to people because it's probably the most rewarding life and she certainly did it and when acting became my thing I went well mom sorry to tell you I'm living life in the most selfish

possible profession because I thought You know, honestly, why do I do this? I do it because I seem to be okay at it. I like the people around me. They're paying me a lot to do it. People go, yay, when I finish it every time. And it seemed like a very selfish profession to me.

What I've learned is it is not, but specifically the Seinfeld show was what pointed it out to me because I have had so many. And it continues to this day at least once a week. I either hear from someone or meet someone who will say some version of. I was going through bad stuff, dark times. You and that show brought me back my joy, brought me back my laughter when I didn't think there would be any.

Thank you. And that compliment is one that both Jay and Jason can take in and go, I am so happy to have been part of something that gave, that did that for you. That's fantastic. And the fact that it continues. and that I travel all over the world. I have yet to find a place where some part of that population doesn't come up and go. I remember when I went into the Palestinian territories for the first time doing peace advocacy work in Israel. And American Drew, keep your head down, is what I thought.

And I stepped out of the car in Ramallah and a little street vendor went, George! And the next thing I know, they're all around. And they know the show. They were excited about the show. I know. It's amazing. I was just telling Jerry that. I got to work with him a couple weeks ago.

Yeah. And I was talking about where we've traveled and done comedy. And I did stand up in Beirut. Wow. Tough crowd. A tough crowd. But it was like in that one little window where it was open and they were so hopeful. And all these young people were so excited that comics from the West were coming.

And the one guy took me aside. He was like, tell more to come. Tell them. We are the same. Yeah. We love Seinfeld. We watch the show all the time. And I was like, holy cow.

I mean, this is when you grow up here and you're like, Beirut, it's the scariest thing you could think of. And they just loved it. Well, you know, it's so interesting this conversation about comedy right now because one of my heroes is a guy named Daniel Labetsky who is probably best. He's on Shark Tank now. And he's probably best known for creating the kind bars and the kind foundation. Oh, yeah. But he's one of the greatest guys in the world. And this whole thing is about building bridges between people.

And he's always asking me for, Jace, can't we use comedy to help build these bridges? And I'm always going, you know, Danny, I don't know, because it seems like comedy is such a landmine these days. Everybody is looking for somebody to say the one thing that makes them go, oh, you're my enemy. You're trying to diminish me. You're trying to. And I honestly, I don't know. I don't know anymore. I keep telling him, just be careful.

Yeah. Because what's funny to you is offensive to this guy. And if you don't know that guy, you don't know where the sore spots are. What's on his mind? Like where? Like within our country? Well, Danny's work is now all over the world. But it's certainly within our country.

But he's still the kind of foundation and this other movement that he's the builder's movement. he works all around the world. When I first met him, he was certainly working in the Middle East, but he was also working at warring factions in South Africa. He was also working. I mean, he was using business. He would take an almond farmer from one place and an olive oil farmer from another place

and make an almond-infused olive oil and go, okay, now you're in business together. And that's how he was building these bridges. And he still continues to do that. Now he's looking for the Builders movement is kind of a, how do you codify a set of behaviors or choices or a program that allows people who seemingly are completely divided in the way they think and see the world into a dialogue that allows curiosity, he says, curiosity, courage, compassion to build those bridges. because at the end of the day, and this is what I find out on my Q&I show all the time, there's a great way to look at it. Somebody will say, you know, in the open question area, they go,

who'd you vote for? And I've learned to say, you know, that's not what you want to know. It doesn't matter who I vote for. It doesn't matter which label I put on myself. Let's ask these questions. Do you think everybody's entitled to have a healthy life? Oh, okay, me too. Do you think everybody's entitled to feel safe in their home and their community and their...

Yeah, me too. Do you feel this and that? And you just go, so our values, the things we care about are absolutely the same. How we achieve those things, we may see that differently. But if we're both trying to get to the same thing, shouldn't we be able to have this dialogue? Yeah. And so, you know, saying, well, I voted this way or I went... And then it brings in all of these...

It means very little. It just makes us divisive. Right. So it's a fascinating time. And I just don't know how much comedy plays into that. I would love, I remember, you know, you look at one of my heroes was Don Rickles. I don't think he could survive today. I think he'd be slaughtered in the street because people don't get how much he had to love people in order to be brave enough.

I know. I go back and forth with that because sometimes I think you do know that about him, even back then. That's why he could get away with it and everybody would laugh at themselves. And he could still carry that today and it could have worked, I think. Maybe. Maybe. I think people feel like before I can look at myself with a sense of humor, I need you to take me seriously. And that's not what's, and I think that's the divide.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, there's nothing. It's really interesting. My friend Daniel Tosh. Yeah. He has his show, Tosh Point O. Yeah.

had. And, you know, they were very much in the way of Daniel's sense of humor. He's just like ripping everybody. Everybody. Yeah. And he would get complaints from different minority groups because they weren't, he wasn't making fun of them enough. Oh, sure. Yeah. Really. Yeah. And it becomes a thing when people are a little more privileged and a little more and have a little more free time to sit and think about what's offensive. The people like when John Rickles was coming up in New Jersey and all those kind of places, you were just scrambling. You're just scrambling. You're just scrubs. And rambling and trying to make your way. You don't have the time to think about feeling.

Somebody says something that reminds you of your brother, and you're laughing. You know, it doesn't care. Absolutely. And you kind of knew also that the intention of the comedian was to make you laugh, not to make you feel bad about yourself. No, exactly. And now that intent is in question for some performers or some communities when they look at the performance. Yeah, yeah.

You still work with the, what is it, the One World Initiative? One Voice. One Voice. That was Danny Labetsky. That was his organization. Yeah. He and a guy named Muhammad Dwarcia, who is really Arab. They began One Voice as a really interesting initiative in the Middle East that I became

part of in the early 90s. Uh-huh. And that could not happen today no matter what. It was a really interesting idea that the really interesting idea that the, reason a two-state long-lasting peace initiative had not happened in the Middle East was because it wasn't in the hands of the people. The people understood exactly how it was going to work. And so it was a process of engaging the moderates on both sides to vote on and modify different planks of what would be a two-state agreement. And when it was completed and was ratified

by the vast majority of both sides, they would take it to the leadership and go, just do this. Right. It was, I think, incredibly promising. They were making great strides. And then events on the ground and changes in leadership

and it just fell apart. You know, I just, I don't know what the future of that. That's always the, I remember as a kid or like, around that time, like early 90s, like Clinton years and, of really becoming keenly aware that whenever there was progress, someone would blow it up, literally, to derail it and bring it back to what it was. Like, every time it gets hopeful, then that some group would ignite it.

And what a shame. Yeah, and look where we are. We're further from it than we've ever been. Well, in some ways, I mean, some people are saying that maybe out of this horror show there comes an opportunity. but I don't know how. I don't know how you get people's hearts to the point where they go, okay, despite it all. Right.

Let's put an end to it. I was cornered on the street one day by a camera guy early after the October 7 attacks and the beginning of the Israeli response to it. And they said, you know, what do you think? And there's no good answer. So the answer I gave is the one I still believe in. I said, look, when everybody went all of us, all of us, in conflict. Love our children more than we love

vengeance or justice or blood or ourselves. When we love our children more, we'll stop this because the children have no lives. Yeah, that's the worst one. And no matter what you think you're trying to build for them or get for them or secure for them, this process, this bloody, violent, hate-filled process has taken away their childhood. So even if you hand it to them 30 years from now,

you've taken away their life. Yeah, and that's a whole other generation. Yeah. It just keeps going stretching out and out. Well, maybe if I do stand up and you do magic and we tour together. Yep. Rights itself. I bake this for you, by the way.

Did you bake this? Yes, this morning. What are we looking at? this is a sourdough loaf it's a country loaf it looks very pretty you're very good yeah it's true is a passion for you the bread it is it is so i have to what i have to do for you yeah because i do ceramics so i have to make you a bowl or a vase or yes yeah that would be wonderful uh i was in cleveland performing and you got to time this out it's about a two three day process to make a to make yeah so i was flying in last yesterday so my wife had a hand-a hand-huh

in this also because she had to feed the starter on starting on Saturday. So it was active enough when I got in the door yesterday. I could go to work and start making your bread and then bake it this morning. So yeah. That's fantastic. Are you going to cut it? No, I'm going to give it to you're going to bring it home. I'm going to bring it home. Yeah. I'm the only one that eats gluten in my house. Oh, they're going to be so jealous. I take everyone else's gluten. They're going to be so jealous. I can't wait. Who's in your house? What do you go? Now it's just me and my wife. But both of my sons live within a mile and a half of our own. Oh, really? And so we see them all the time. How old are they? My son Gabe is 32. My son Noah next month will be 29.

Oh, that's nice. Gabe is the married one and we have a two-year-old grandson. Really? Oh, that's got to be a dream. Oh, my God. So my kids are just leaving. They're 22. Yeah. And banging around New York and my other one's in school, a couple years in school. So we're just starting this, this. this new version. Yeah. It's, the journey of adulthood,

exactly. I have to say the gift my boys gave us is being so close. I used to, when the boys were teenagers, I would say to my wife, Dana, I go, so,

all right, where do you want to be in 10 years? And she'd go, where are the boys? And I went, okay, let's be realistic. They probably won't be here.

Yeah. There's no guarantee they're going to be in the same place. What are you going to do? And she went, that's what I'm thinking. They'll be here or will be where they are.

but they will be together. And I went, okay, honey, well, whatever you say. And she's a witch. How did she do that? She willed it. Both the boys, after school, Gabe went to Yale. Noah went to Pomona. They both came back to Los Angeles.

They both started to begin their career journeys here. Right. Gabe met his wife. She lives here. Noah has no desire to leave. Right. And they live a mile and a half. the direction of us.

I mean, they even like the neighborhood. Yeah. That's amazing. Yeah. Because we have all our families back east, and we had one daughter was born in New York, one was born here, and we are very concerned right now that it's trending that one wants to be in L.A. and one wants to be in New York, in which case we're bi-coastal just to follow them?

Yeah. I don't honestly, I am the worst one to ask about this because I cannot imagine living in a world where I don't see my boys every week. That would be so diminishing to me. And I've done it because I've gone to New York and done three, four months of time. I'll go do a theater piece. And I don't like it. Yeah. I say no to a lot of stuff.

Not because I don't want to do it. I'd love to do it. But I am 65 years old and I am hungry for the time I have left. of my family. Yeah. And the idea of missing months at a time, especially with the grandchild. Yeah, that's good.

I go, it's, I don't know what, I don't know what that project could be. Yeah. I don't need the money. And I'm famous enough. So unless it's a role that I go, oh, that's going to feed me in a way that I've never been fed before,

I just, I say no more often than that. Is this your way of saying, we're not going to go on tour together with our show? We're going to tour, but we're going to come home every week. Friday, Saturday, home. Right, exactly. Three a week. That's a perfect, perfect.

We can get to the Middle East, in back of that past, right? Oh, man, a grandchild, that's pretty amazing. You will, you will, I could not have imagined it. Yeah. You know, when they were pregnant with this boy, and they go, oh, you're going to be a grandpa, you excited?

And I go, sure. Yes. You know, it was such an abstract thing. Yeah. And the day they put this little bundle in my arms, and I went, oh, okay. Actually, there was a funny story with Gabe. I was holding Bennett Bennett when he was a baby. And Gabe's sitting there watching me and he goes, is it different?

Is it different? I go, yeah. He goes, how? I said, well, I'll tell you, but I don't know you'll love the answer. He goes, no, tell me. I go, okay. So when you were born, Gabe, for whatever reason, you know, I knew within minutes of your birth, if I had to take a bullet for you,

I would do it without thought. Right. You needed to survive. Now, I will kill you to protect this job. So there's your change. That's amazing. Oh, man.

We have a new one just added to our family, one of my nephews. Yeah. And holy cow. This little blob shows up and it just melts everybody. All 20 of us are just like, just completely changed. It's insane. Yeah.

It really is insane. And, you know, God knows what this young boy will become. But right now he has such a sweet soul and such a sweet disposition that the, I love you, grandpa, are so genuine. Oh, God. That I go, oh, you're in the will. Yeah. I feel like that with my pug.

Yeah. Yeah. Pugs can do that. Just lays on my lap. Yeah. I cancel spots every night. I'm like, I can't get up. He's on my lap again. With the little snorts? Yeah. It's the best. Are your kids funny?

Yeah. They are. Gabe, they're both kind of in our business. Gabe wants to do exactly what I do. He had a really good sketch and improv career going prior to the pandemic. And then a lot of the venues just didn't make it. And his partner, his sketch partner, took a real job. And so that's become harder for him. But he's a funny guy.

My younger son, Noah, is a voice actor, just as Vio and mocap and stuff. It's so interesting. It's living therapy for me. So Gabe is more the Jason persona. Noah is more the J.A. persona. But if you listen to Noah, he's really funny. But he just doesn't put it out there.

Right, right. But he's carrying it. If you, if you, you know, he's the last one to talk at the table. Yeah. But he's got, he's got the clincher. He's just got to, right, just kicks back. Give him the opening and he'll, he's got it. Bidding his time.

Yeah, they're very funny. We had Henry Winkler on the program. Oh, yeah. And he was so great. He was so funny. It seems like he, his time of breaking away from a character, an iconic character. Yeah. it seemed like it was a bit longer of a hall.

I think maybe because the shows were the opportunity, the way seeing other people do it. I mean, he probably laid the groundwork. You, you've had such a great career since Seinfeld. And I saw you in the producers in L.A., which was just, holy cow, was just so, I never saw like just a play just ripped the roof off. It was just.

That piece can do it. God, so good. Did you carry any of that? Or did you just keep, was the young actor and you just like, let's just go look for another part? After Seinfeld? Yeah. I very much felt like I had to plant my own flag after Seinfeld. Yeah.

And I had a production company that was pretty active. I did a series that I was kind of proud of that didn't do Shnigh. We actually debuted, I think, on 9-13 of 9-11. Good time for comedy. That was the day I was supposed to do Letterman. Really? For real. Oh, my God.

Yeah. I thought it was important to plant a flag, not for myself, but to make a point that I didn't need that show to be what I had been perceived at. Right. Wait, I'm sorry. What do you mean be perceived at? So I, you know, that I had become Jason Alexander for most people's heads because of the Seinfeld show. Right. Could I be Jason Alexander without the Seinfeld show? Gotcha. And so I did a lot of things chasing the idea of that goal. Mm-hmm.

almost all of them by the by the metric of public success failed right many of them by my metric of what was my experience of it were tremendously successful so again thank god for therapy going right i don't feel like i failed but i think i failed you know what kind of thing um and working to the point where i went oh yeah okay right okay jason the Jason Alexander that existed during Seinfeld might never exist again I got to this talking to Bill Shatner who's become a friend

and going yeah that's fine he might never have existed there are fantastic actors out there some of them working some of them having a very nice life who never got a Seinfeld the Seinfeld's come along very rarely very very rarely

God. I had to get to a point where what I just did, doing Tevia in Fiddler on the roof at La Marada in Orange County is one of the best things I've ever done in my life. Right. 30,000 people saw it. Wow. I don't think there's going to be an opportunity for me to do it again.

Right. And that is great. That experience just, it's not Jason Alexander. Alexander thing. It's not, it wasn't big enough. Yeah, yeah. But it was... That's a different metric, right? I mean, you're talking about... And learning to love my life and my career on that metric. Yeah. That's been the last 20 years. And I couldn't get where I am if I hadn't had that false thing of

going, I got to plant another Seinfeld flag. And going... The lesson that we hear all the time and that I've learned over and over again is it ain't the... It ain't the destination. it's the journey. Everybody thinks if I do this, if I get there, if I become this, I'm going to have, it's all going to come together. It never happens that way. And if you're lucky, it's this wonderful journey of who did you meet, what were the fun times, what did you learn, what did you learn by failing, what did you learn by succeeding,

and how do you use it to set another place to journey to? And not worry about if you get there, but just hold it as a, as a day. destination. Yeah. Learning that over the last 20 years has been so rewarding. And it's that it's, we finally get mature a little late in life. I wish I could have. But it's funny, isn't it?

Contain some of this earlier. I really do. I think I wouldn't have made so many of the mistakes that I've made. But you can't. You can't rush it. But now I go, yeah. Your dad was your dad to you. You bet.

But he wasn't your dad to your stepbrother because he was a, a different guy, a different, you have all this energy and different, you can't. It's a place now of such contentment and gratitude and interest in stuff. I mean, I've got nine projects going, I don't know if they're

going to, you know, but, and I'm not an enlistor, and I'm not on the tip of everybody's tongue, and listen, I remember, here's a story you talk about Henry Winkler, when Barry was casting, I wanted to go in for Henry's part, I wanted to audition for it. Right.

It's Alec Berg. You'd be great at that. Yeah. I know, Alex. Yeah. Alex said, I don't think I see you in it. And I go, okay, well, that's why I want to come in. Yeah.

If I come in and I do what I think might be fun for you and you still don't see it, then you don't give it to me. And Alex said, but I don't want to say no to you. And I go, but you're saying no now. And I never went in for it. It's interesting. You would be good at that role. Yeah, I do it differently. Henry?

Henry was glorious in it. Yeah, but you both have the, I mean, his story and you're, you both carry as a person. We have a similar career story. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. But it's that kind of thing where I think I'm not invited to the party often. For a couple of reasons. One is there's so much George out there.

And if you don't know, you don't, it's a compliment when people go, I didn't think you were acting. I thought that's just who you were. And I don't need that in my project. And I go, well, thank you. But it was just one of many characters. It is a, it's hard to, it's hard to shake that. And so I'm always surprised when the phone rings. I have a movie coming out that I did with the Russo Brothers.

Right. Where I went, how did you guys think of me for this? You know, you're an actor. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, gee, thanks. Yeah. Well, it's almost like that thing when it's like when you fly coach and you're happy and you know,

you try and get your aisle seat and you kind of adapt. And then you fly first class a couple times and you're like, oh my God, how do I go back to coach? It's a nightmare. Like you were in the upper, I mean, you couldn't have been better. The work to carry a character for that long to be that successful, all of it. I mean, you could not have gotten any better. But that was the thing that Shatner said to me when I met him. I was still doing Seinfeld.

Yeah. And he was given to me as a birthday present when I turned 35. And we had lunch and then we became friends. But he said, he just came out of nowhere to say it. And he said, can I just tell you something? I said, sure. He said, much like you, I did, you know, probably the biggest thing in my career in my 30s. Unlike you, mine was a failure.

We did three years and it was considered a nothing. and I was so resentful because it made enough of an impression that it was keeping me from getting work because I was Captain Kirk, but I wasn't getting residuals. It wasn't, you know, we hadn't, you know. Yeah, yeah. So the fans would come up to me, and I'd be an asshole to them. Right.

I didn't want the stink of this on me. And then, of course, it changed, Mormon. Sure. He said, look, this may be your one. this may be the biggest thing you ever do in your career. Most of us don't get one. Don't ever shit on it. Yeah.

Oh, that's great advice. You are breathing rarefied air. Yeah. And you'll always work. This will absolutely guarantee you will always be able to work. And probably in a bigger capacity than your previous career would have opened doors for. Right. Just don't feel like if you don't get another one of these, you failed.

and that was so good to hear in my 30s. I didn't understand it until I got in my 40s. Right. When I really, well, you know, I would say, you know, the reasons I went into therapy and the beginnings of the good results of therapy, I went into therapy in my early 30s. Around 42, it started to make sense to me.

Right. It started to come together. And honestly, I stayed in therapy until I was about 46, 47th. and I left and five years ago when I turned 60, I called my therapist and I went, I want to come back. And I went in and she said, okay, welcome back.

What are we doing? And people may relate to this, especially if they're our age. I said, you know, I've been so many characters and I've played so many avatars of myself in my life. You know, Jason the child, Jason the thing, Jason the thing,

Jason the thing. I don't think I know which one is real. I'm not sure which one is authentically me or which is closest to me. I said, look, I'd like, before I die, I'd like to know authentically who I am. Doesn't mean I will choose to bring that person out, but I'd like to know for my own identification. Yeah. Who's the real guy? And we started going to work on that. And it's been, it's been really impactful and peaceful and I have never been quite just so grateful to be in my own skin. And can I ask, is part of the piece because the realization that it's not a concrete thing,

that you're never one thing, that you're kind of... I'm never one thing because... You know what I mean? Yeah, everything that's alive is constantly changing. Right, right. But I used to, I'll give you a perfect example. I screwed up so many interviews that I so regret by saying something that either

I thought would be entertaining but turned out to be hurtful or it was something that had truth but it wasn't something that everybody needed to know. You didn't have to say it. It happened in our inner circle. It was for us. And what am I?

Being a big shot? Am I showing off? And so you know, about 10 years ago, I started to tell myself before I did an interview, you don't have to be funny. You have to be kind. You have to be kind. Right.

Right. And that's a totally different... Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a different animal. Yeah. And I didn't know that. Again, because I was the lonely kid, I thought I had to be something in order to have any value.

Yeah. And so when all this stuff started happening, I thought, I have to be something to merit all this attention. and value. And so I would try to be. Yeah. And mostly unconsciously. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And then you're pushing. But then, you know, to be able to let all that go and go, look, better or worse. Yeah. Yeah. This is kind of where I sit. Yeah. I'm still working on it. I'm still figuring out. Yeah. Yeah. This is the guy I can chat with you here. If we went out and had dinner and we had another version of this conversation?

Yeah. You're not getting a different guy. Right. Right. And that is a relatively new thing. Yeah. That's a big deal. I mean, you know, it's a strange thing for performers because ego in its different forms is the engine.

You have to have it to think like you can go do these things. But not letting it actually, you need it, but he shouldn't be driving. Absolutely. That's exactly right. Right. We do a thing on this program called an uncomfortable moment. Where we do a little deep dive. I've been sitting on my phone for an hour.

Is that not? That counts. Did it go off? All right, good. I put it on an airplane because I respect you, Tom. You're so nice. So we did a little research and it seems like in your, there's a story, you know, when you say with the magic, when they told you that you really can't play. You can't really do magic because of physical things.

My hands. Because your hands. My little doll hands. Your little doll hands. Your little puppy hands. And there was apparently another story that you, once you did get into acting, you were told that you couldn't play Hamlet. That just the way that you were built, you're not really a Hamlet, even though that you thought that you could.

And then we found this picture. And I don't know if this is just in your yard. but it looks like you're... It's fantastic. It looks like you're bringing Hamlet back to the people. A little more of a Henry the 8th kind of wardrobe there, which I think I could play. Oh, that's fantastic. Look at you.

Somebody knows how to Photoshop. No, people say that all the time. I don't know what's going on in our research department. You know that Hamlet story is actually an amazing story? It's the reason I have the life I have. Really? And it's because a professor at college cared. Do you know that, sir?

You want that really quickly? Yeah, tell me. I went to Boston University as a theater major. And I, because William Shatner was my muse, I wanted a dramatic career. I really thought I was going to play some of the great classical roles and be a dramatic actor. I hadn't done much comedy. I had done some musicals, so there was that, but I hadn't done much comedy. Right.

And the summer, the second semester in my sophomore year, I had a professor named James Spruill. at Boston. He was the only black member of the faculty. He was a guy who had come up in the 60s with street theater. Theater is to change the minds of the masses, you know, affect change. Yeah.

He was a real guy. He was a real guy. Yeah. And he brought me into his office for my semester consultation. And he had this great Basso kind of James Earl Jones' voice. And he sat back and he just kind of nodded his head

and looked at me for a minute. He went, I know. that your heart and soul is Hamlet. And you would be a profound Hamlet. You will never play Hamlet. So you best get good at Falstaff. And I went, what? And he basically said, look in the mirror.

You are five, six. You are 20 to 25 pounds overweight, and you are losing your hair. You have a large performing persona. If you want a commercially successful career, you're going to be a comedian. And you're not embracing it. You're not looking at it. You're not doing it. So great.

I then went back to my apartment and went, but I'm not funny. I'm not funny. I don't even understand how people are funny. And because of him, I created a syllabus. And I started making a list of, well, who's funny to me? What actors, what comedians. Right. And going, okay, studying their material, going, why are they funny?

How are they funny? What are they doing that makes this funny? Yeah. And trying to pluck little things to started looking at comedic material, comedic plays and trying a little something from, you know, from Carlin or trying a little something from Don Adams or trying a little something from Phyllis Diller or, you know, and starting to build what I could think of as a bag of comedic tricks to pull from. Had he not said to me, you ain't Hamlet, man.

Yeah. I would have finished that school and gone into the professional world thinking, well, here we go. Right. Here's Jason Alexander and the Iceman Come up. It's what everybody is waiting for. And I would have been wrong. Yeah. Oh, man.

What a gift. Unbelievable gift. What a gift. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of times when I perform stand-up, I wear a suit. And I always picture myself as Carrie Grant. And it was only till the reviews come in that he looks like a businessman getting off a long flight.

Oh, that's so good. And I'm like, oh, they're seeing something totally different than what I'm seeing. All the time. All the time. That's great, though. Yeah. All right, one last thing before you go. All right.

You're going to take this bread home. You're going to eat it in front of your family. In the car. How old is your grandson? Two. Two. He can eat bread, right? He's not gluten intolerant.

Oh, hell yes. Yeah. All right. You guys will have fun with that. Yeah. But we also eat the weird things that we find out in the world. Oh, my God. And this, I feel like, is going to be good because of your New York roots and, like,

banging around and being a poor actor in New York at the beginning. We found a thing called cup of noodles. spicy seafood flavor snack. Oh, snack! Yeah. This isn't this is actually like a... So this is a poor man's ramen chip. Chip. Okay. Oh my God. There's scissors. This is where we're at.

Your podcast. Yes, sir. Really? No, really. Really? With myself and my partner, Peter Tilden. We were just finishing our second year. And it's great fun. We're on the I-Heart app, but you can find. us anywhere you get your podcast. And we explore every week. It's a different subject. It is something that we hear about that makes us go, really?

No, no, no, really? And we clown around with it, but then we have somebody on who really can speak to that. Yeah. And we kind of get to the bottom of stuff. Can I tell you my favorite episode? Please. Because we both, I enjoyed how much you enjoyed Leanne Morgan.

Oh, Leanne was great. Just watching you... She was great. You just... I mean, we're funny people. Yeah. But watching Leanne, like, you realize,

like, she's so funny. And watching you realize how funny she was, just warm my heart. And the fact that she is only coming into her, the meat of her life and career in her 50s.

Yeah. You know? So great. That was the thing. That was the really of that show was, this and it's only happening now? I know.

Yeah, but I mean, she'd been doing it forever, but it would really just seeing you love her the way I did would make me happy. I'm a little distracted because I've opened the bag and I can smell it. Uh-huh. Good luck. Okay. How many years of fish? You're an actor, you're in New York, you're living in a studio apartment. Whoa.

That is very bold. That is very bold. It's got a definite fish smell. seafood cup of noodles Oh, come on I'd eat that in a heartbeat Just give it a beat Oh, the after taste?

The spice Oh, that's what you're eating No one eats a potato chip You're eating salt It happens to be on a thing This is, so this is cayenne And probably some sort of You know, the kind of

The rubs that you would put on a salmon If you were going to bake a salmon Uh-huh Cayam, garlic pepper, a little bit of onion. Am I right? You're reading the bag? Yeah, this I've never...

A shit ton of MSG. I've never seen this. Warning, consuming this product can expose you to chemicals, including acrylamide, which is known to the state of California to cause cancer. I'm so sorry.

I've never seen a late one. If a crilomide takes me out. It's not bad. It's terrible, but it's not bad. Thank you all for being on Jason's final podcast. It tastes like nothing that would be in that bowl. That's the crazy thing. It doesn't taste like fish? No. This is the weirdest thing we ever found.

That is odd. I thought when you said in New York, you were going to, you know, Zabar out for a second. No, we're down in the South Street Seaport, slinging fish. Let me tell you, that bag never saw the South Street, Seaport. I'm actually different now than when I took a bite. Is that a Japanese product?

Or a Chinese product? We're going to Japan. You are? Yeah. I want to go. Have you ever gone? I've never been. Can't wait.

Everyone loves it. But if this is what I have to look forward to, I may... You know what the best part of Japan is that I've heard from my friends that have gone? You know the fancy toilets that do all the things? The ones that I have in my own? Yeah. They have those in public restrooms there. Oh, that's nice.

That's how... But you know what I also have heard they have? This is a true thing that I only experienced in Paris years ago when I first went there. And I was out on the street and I went, oh, Defcom won. We need to... We need to open the Bombay doors. And I walk into this restroom and there is no toilet. There is a very tall, but looks like a urinal, you know, a ceramic indent into the wall, urinal,

with a hole about, you know, the size of a small pot at the bottom. Uh-huh. And that's it. And I'm going, well, I'm not here to urinate. What do I do? And I don't know how to use this because I'm thinking, now, if the idea is you somehow crouch over the hole. Yeah. If I turn my back into this thing, I'm also assuming people pee on that back ceramic wall.

I'm like, I don't want to put my naked ass against that. But if I turn around the other way, now it could be that I have a terrible, you know, second position ballet, but I can't get my butt over this hole. I can't, my knees are not opening to the greed. Yeah. And I understand that that is also prevalent in Japan. What are you supposed to do? I have yet to know.

What I did is I ran around, you know, sweating bullets. found an actual toilet in Paris. And they said, many restaurants, do you have to be a customer? I said, order me something. Here's $100. I'm using your toilet. But, yeah.

Wow. All right, because we, one last question. I know I was going to let you go. All right. How am I going? I work with Jerry for years. I've heard of him.

You work with Jerry for years. Yeah. Is there any story you can give me that no one's ever heard before? About Jerry? Yeah, about Jerry. Working with Jerry. Wow.

Maybe in the beginning, looking at him again, who's, I know he's a comic, but... So, okay, here's the downside of being this old. Okay. I'm not sure if what I'm remembering happened, or if it's a story that I've told and now I think it happened. But here's a story that I believe happened. Okay. And it was during the pilot, shooting the pilot. And there was a scene in the diner where he and I are, you know, at odds again about something.

And we're rehearsing and Jerry says to me very kindly, he goes, you know, when Larry and I wrote this, we kind of heard it a certain way. Would it be awful of me to ask you to maybe try it this way? And I said, are you saying you want to give me a line reading? And he said, well, yeah, I said, sure. I said, here's the thing. as long as I understand it, I'm happy to do it. I said, I might even be happy to do it if I don't understand it, you know,

if it's really important to you. But if I understand it, absolutely, I have no problem with you giving me a line reading. If you can make me funnier, I'm in. Right? I said, but as long as we're having this conversation, are our characters having an argument? He said, yeah, I said, uh-huh. could I ask you to have an argument?

Because it kind of feels like I'm punching into jello. If you don't stand up for your side of it, there's nothing I can do on my, you know. So it was kind of like we found this thing right on the first day or two of our working relationship together, where the door became open to absolutely you can make me fun here. Right. And by the way, I learned so much more about what's funny and how to make comedy from watching that gang. And I said, but can I be unashamed to tell you when you're sitting back and you shouldn't be sitting back? Can I treat you like an actor and ask you to step?

And that understanding, I will actually say that that understanding between he and I extend it out. And one of the magical things about the Seinfeld show was because no one was wanting, you know, it really, when you have a show that's not doing anything and you're on it, all you're thinking about is looking out for number one. Let me get a piece of tape off of this thing that I can go get another show with because this is going to be out of here in a minute.

Yeah, yeah. We, the four of us never had that. The four of us had a sort of, oh, you know what would be great? This line's good on me, but it would kill on Julia. Right. And vice versa. We, very often in a television show, if you're not in the scene, you go to your dressing room while that scene rehearses. Right.

We never did that. Oh, interesting. We stayed. We watched each other. We laughed with and for each other. We offered suggestions. Right. We were pulling for each other because we were having a good time doing it.

So great. And I think, you know, Jerry certainly set the tone for that by that conversation we head. But here's the truth. It's kind of a weird truth. The only one of the core four I really got to know over the nine years with Julia. Michael's, and Michael and I've talked about this recently, I read Michael's book, and I loved his book. And I got in touch with him and I said, I love the book. Here's what's said, I don't think I met this guy. You were doing stuff I was not even aware of. because his process was so isolated in some ways. And I didn't want to interfere with that process.

And I was in my own world. I was dealing with my own stuff. With Jerry, every time he was with us, he was not someplace else he needed to be. So he came down and we had fun and we enjoyed each other. And it was a lot of laughs. And I know some things about what was going on in his life. But I wasn't a confidant.

And, you know, he's down. he's rehearsing with us and then he's in the editing room or he's in the casting office or he's writing or he's doing something else. So I didn't hang out with Jerry. Right. And as a result, I don't really know him all that well. So when people go, oh, tell me a great story, I go

well, he's really funny. He loves the last. You know, we all had such a good time. Yeah. But when people say are the four of you really close, I go, well, not in that way. We don't hang out. We don't have a social friendship.

We had a work friendship. Now, given that, if any one of them said, hey, could you or would you or I need you? Right. In a second. And when we are together, it's huge fun. I mean, it's like we're right back in that groove. Yeah. But if somebody said, hey, let's go have dinner.

I go, okay, let's see if we can do this. You know, it's... It's such a strange reality for us. Well, yeah, I mean, the public loves you all and just think, and they buy into the reality of you all being hanging all the time. Yeah. But you're working. Everyone's working.

Yeah. The only time we really would ever dine together is after a taping. Right. We and the writers and we'd all go out to Jerry's deli and we'd have a meal. But that was not a hang, you know, where you don't find out about anybody. Isn't it sad? Jerry's deli is not there. Horrible.

Isn't that terrible? Yeah, the whole thing. I don't understand. It was such a legacy. somebody was really skimming something off of something because the whole thing went. Yeah. Belly up over there.

Man, oh, ma'am. Well, this was a delight. Tom, it's lovely to finally meet and hang with you. Likewise. You and I have now hung in a real way. We really have. More than I have with Jerry. And you can lord that all over.

Yeah, that's good. Yeah. And it's so funny when you say, like, whether or not that story really happened, I can see when Jerry sees it or I tell him about it. Yeah, it never happened. You know, I think, I know that we had a conversation like that.

No. Because I know there were moments where I'd said, you got, yeah, you can come at me. And certainly there, I can even remember one of the lines where he came to me and it wasn't in the pilot. This was another episode where George was concerned that he was dating a woman and he never had the upper hand. And Jerry says a line about, you got no hand. And in rehearsal, my line is written was no hand, period, no hand, period. period. Now, a trained actor, you're going, okay, so you repeat things to find the difference. So I played the first one in realization, no hand. And then I played the, to complain, no hand, right?

And that's great. That's perfect. Jerry came up to me like on the second day and he went, you know, we had a thing in our head. Can I give it to you? I go, sure. He goes, here's how we heard it. No hand, no hand. and I went, I don't even understand what that is. Am I just parroting it back to you? And he went, I don't know. It's just that we heard it. And I went, okay. No hand, no hand.

Huge laughs. I went, whatever that fuck it is. I'm good. I just learned when they had something like that. Don't mess with it. I know. He has a weird comic brain where I would do a joke and he would say literally like, you might want to change it from,

from these to those. And I'd be like, what does that mean? And then you try it and the laugh is just that much bigger. I've tried to explain to people, because I've seen Jerry perform a fair amount. And I've seen them with all kinds of audiences. Good, bad, young, old, foreign, domestic, hostile. He always gets them.

He always turns the crowd. And it is that he has several things that I just find uncanny. One is that that word smith. thing about this is the right word. Yep. This is the right structure of these five lines. Line six is funny, but it's too much.

You know, I've never seen another comedian that can find the material and make the material work for anybody for as long as he's been doing it. For the, what, five decades? that he's been doing this.

No, it's almost like it's a machine. It is really, really uncanny. I, you know, on any given day, there is another comedian that I go, oh, that's a new voice. That's really funny. Yeah. But if you want to talk about who is the go-to stalwart,

never going to fail, never going to let you down, accessible, he's the king. Yeah. He's the, I've never met anybody that. I thought was his equal. Yeah. No, it's, once you learn like, oh, this is, you don't have to figure everyone out. You just have to listen to it is about comedy.

Yeah. Then you're in good shape. I remember in the film he did comedian. Yeah. He goes into a, you know, a little bodega. And he goes, you can find comedy anywhere. And they used to have this royal jelly. You know, I think it was something you put on your skin or it was some sort of herbal supplement.

Yeah. And it's not a jelly, you know. Yeah. But it's, and he goes, yeah, royal jelly. Making a jelly now. So you can spread it on toast. And it's funny. And I go, how does his brain, he can look at anything?

Yeah. I'll tell you when I knew he was a genius. A genius. I heard him do a bit early on where he was talking about the newspaper and he goes, I, they, at the end of every day, they must just. breathe the biggest sigh of relief that exactly enough things happened to make that paper come out perfect. They could have been on the last page and go, oh, we only have two paragraphs and nothing else happened. And then it would be a blank page.

And to look at a newspaper and go, to think that that's how it is done, to look at it through those eyes. Yeah. In a way no one else has. No, who's ever looked at a newspaper and not thought. about how do they make it come out exactly? Everything fills, everything, page. It's perfect. Yeah, too much.

Brilliant. So great. Yeah, give them my best, Tom. I said, hey. All right, I will. Enjoy this. I'm going to. Let me know how you like it.

From the car. You saw me eat these. You know I'm eating that bread. For as disgusting and cancer-causing as those were, you really plowed through all. And only 150 calories per bag. Is that true? Oh, serving size. You can take the rest home, too.

servings. All right, we got it, kids. If you loved our conversation with Jason, I know that you did. You are going to love next week's guest Harlan Williams. Coming back on the program, Harland is hilarious. He's a great comedian, a great actor, a great person. I love always spending time with Harlan Williams, and he will be on the big program next week. I don't know if I'm going to give him bread or not, because last time he thought it was

prop and he made it into a hat. So I'm not sure if I'm going to give him bread. We'll all find out next week with Harlan Williams. See ya.