Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum - Seinfeld’s JASON ALEXANDER: Tricks to Comedy

Episode Date: November 16, 2021

The hilarious and incredibly talented Jason Alexander (Seinfeld, Pretty Woman) joins this week to discuss his evolution going from an ambitious stage actor to pursuing a comedic career and landing the most popular sitcom of all time, Seinfeld. Jason and I discuss the stresses and anxiety of working on a Broadway production and how people in that profession have to manage an uber structured and stressful lifestyle. We also discuss his favorite moments on Seinfeld, the shock of landing Pretty Woman with Richard Greer and Julia Roberts, and what life has been like for his peers and family post-Seinfeld. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Light the path to a brighter future with stellar lenses for myopia control. Learn more at slur.com. And ask your family eye care professional for SLR Stellar lenses at your child's next visit. you're listening to inside of you with michael rosenbaum very assertive today i hope you're having a wonderful day ryan how's your day i'm doing all right i like to hear that yes yes yes we're doing yes we're doing all right uh thanks for listening thanks for tuning in thanks for spending an hour with me every week if you're here for jason alexander only i appreciate that but hopefully you'll stick around if you like my voice or you like my interviewing style i hope you do uh it was a real treat interviewing jason alexander before we get that let me just say a few things uh my band will be playing

november 20th virtually you can watch it and uh there's prizes and zooms go to sunspin. a band is called sunspin you go to sunspin.com and you could also go to stage it type in sunspin and get your tickets please support the band sunspin uh sunspin.com also has merch And the inside of you online store has tons of really great stuff. Lex Luthor stuff, small little stuff, inside of you stuff, tumblers, just a bunch of great stuff you can get there to support the podcast. And lovable patrons, I love you. Thank you for supporting the podcast.

If you want to join Patreon, they get to the podcast a little more. They keep the podcast afloat. They help me pay for extra stuff so I can give you a good quality show. Just go to patreon.com slash inside of you, p-t-r-e-o-n.com slash inside. of you, join the family. There's lots of tears and things you can get, perks, and it's become a big family. So I don't need to talk too much about that. I could probably talk about it for an hour. Lastly, I will just say that my charity that I work with, I'm on the board for, Echoes of Hope. For the next month or two, if you want to donate or help out Echoes of Hope, we're hosting a holiday

event for under-resourced children, teens, and young adults, roughly 300 students will be supported this December. And if they want to purchase a gift, if you guys want to purchase a gift or two, you can visit our wish list on Amazon by going to at Our Echoes of Hope on social media. These are students who a lot of times do not have family, so they oftentimes spend holidays alone, and it could be a very difficult time for them. So we host a holiday party to make the holiday season special for them. Visit our website to echoesofhope.org, and there's a bunch different options for giving on the donate page. So I will say that.

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can to Echoes of Hope and check out Weird, WYRD. They're metery. I love those guys and I just want to give them a little props is there anything wrong with that that was really cool yeah why not let's get inside of one of my favorite people uh jason alexander has been around for a long time he's not old and he looks really good but uh i love talking to him and uh i was excited i felt like a kid in a candy store and uh he had some admiration for me mutual we had mutual admiration and uh it was a real treat so uh i think you're really going to enjoy this one uh we get a little deep let's get inside of jason Alexander. It's my point of view. You're listening to Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum. Inside of You with Michael Rosenbaum was not recorded in front of a live studio audience.

Hey, you look really good. Stop and finish your thought. No, that was the, that was the thought. You look good. You look healthy. You look refreshed. You look. Refreshed. It looked like you, uh, you're sleeping well. None of the above, but bless you. Do you not, do you not sleep well? I'm old. You know, that's a thing that comes with age. Seriously.

That is, I find, um, so I'm about to turn 62. It's not old, by the way. And I find for the last three years, you know, it's like if you get three hours and then you're kind of up and then it's a little hard to get back down, you get another two to three. So like six hours is a big night for me. I used to be an eight hour guy, nine hour guy. But, and I used to remember my grandparents would, you know, they never slept.

And I'd go, Grandma, go to sleep. And she's just, I think it's one of those things. It just, it's a hormonal change. Like you just don't need it. Is it, do you not need as much sleep when you're old, when you get older? I think you need it just as much. But I think if you go back to the caveman days, you know, who was really vulnerable? Kids, little kids and old people.

And I think they were wired to wake up every now and then in case there was a lion in the cave or something. It was just self-preservation. We haven't weaned out of it. Do you go to bed stress? Do you have anything to stress about it these days? You know? Do you know anyone who is like, I'm stress-free right now? The world is good.

I feel like I'm the only one. I feel like I'm the only one that stresses about everything. No. I think everybody is stressed out of their minds at this point. I don't know how you can... I mean, listen, I don't stress about things that... a lot of people stress about it. I'm not worried about how am I going to pay the rent

or put food on the table, thank God. But I think everybody is stressed out. If you're engaged with the world, you're concerned, and some of those concerns can be existential at sometimes. And yeah, I think people stress. Yeah. Do you remember meeting me? Tell me where it was.

That'll help. I mean, here's why I feel I know you. And, you know, I'm not going to, I won't do the suck up for the whole thing. But I was a major small deal geek. major. And when you came on, I went, they got it right. Holy crap, they got it right. It was so, it was such smart casting on their part, but really smart writing and playing on your part. It was such an interesting, complex character and kind of unknowable as to what the real agenda was going to

be. And so smart on your part for a number of reasons. One, it was just good work. But we all know, and when you're doing a TV series, you don't know what these guys are going to do next. You know, they can throw you a bone in episode 8 when you go, if I know that, I would have come out as a whole different way. So you had so much leeway, you know, it was such a smart, okay,

I can go this way, I can go this way, what do you got? Where are we going? How are we going? And I just remember, I used to say to my wife, this guy is good. He's good. Do you know how good that makes me feel? I mean, coming from you, I mean, look, you're a legend.

And my brother is more excited even about this than I am about that I'm talking to you today. But we met, that means the world to me. It really does. And I know, it just does. And in fact, I remember it was at Norby Walters. Oh, we played poker, right? He played poker.

And you just, you know, I was like, oh, my God, Jason Alexander's here, Jason Alexander. And you're like, and you said something like that. You said something like, I love your work on the show or something. And it just was like, what? It was, it's amazing when you're. the guys you look up to or women you look up to

that they say something like that. Have you had that in your life where somebody I have. I mean, I've had it often and so I remember I had worked for Neil Simon back in the 80s when I was mostly doing theater in New York

and I had a lovely time with it, but we never got close but somehow I was invited during the Seinfeld years to his home for, to celebrate a birthday at this. And I was the only person there I'd never heard of, you know, so. And Johnny Carson was there. And I so wanted to talk to him and just say, thank you for all that, all those wonderful

use. But I was very intimidated. He's not going to know why am. And, you know, it gets bothered all the time. And I sort of psyched myself out. And the third time I passed him, he got up and said, I just want to say, I love your work on the show. And I was like, oh, my God.

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. And now I had to, like, make up the excuses for why I'd walked by him two times without saying anything. I was so intimidated. I didn't want to bother you. But, yeah, I'll tell you the one that killed me, killed me. I had never met Dick Van Dyke up to the point of this story. But I did a TV movie by By Birdie in the role that he created. And it went on the air. It was fine. It was fine. I was proud of it. It was fine. the following day i don't know how he got my address i got flowers and a bottle of champagne and a note that's dead dear jason now i know how to play the role thank you you were great big van dyke and i went oh come on come on do you that's stupid do you save things like that yes i save all this shit i save if somebody wrote a letter so i took a picture with someone it's on the wall yeah you bet because i've always felt like my career could be over tomorrow. That's it. Every time I'm working, you can be over tomorrow. And at least I'll have,

you know, being a fan, I'll have all this in my house like a museum. And I could say to somebody one day, I met that person. I did this. Absolutely. What's the one thing you have at your house that you keep? I have a bunch of stuff. The stuff that I really kind of put out that I don't have in a book somewhere are things like, um, I worked for Stephen Sondheim. That was my Broadway debut, Stephen Souther. First day on the job, he said, everybody please call me Steve, but you know, and I've worked with him many times,

and I guess we have, I've never hung out with him, but we have a lovely rapport, but I'm always so aware that I'm working with a very extraordinary human being, and I've never quite been comfortable and relaxed around, and my fault

not is, you know, it's just what I carry. Right. And several years ago. He was celebrating his 75th birthday and he was interviewed in the New York Times and he made a comment about, I think my time may have passed. I don't know if I'm relevant anymore.

I don't know that I have anything else to offer. And I wrote him a letter, and I don't know what possessed me to do this, I wrote him a pretty long letter that said, Stephen, I have a 10-year-old son that can sing one-third of your canon. And the only reason he doesn't sing the rest of it is he doesn't quite understand what it's about.

He will. I said, and he is not an unusual kid. He is, you are continuing to touch people around the world. Everyone that I know who loves the theater waits in anticipation of anything you are willing to share with us next, be in a new piece or what. And I finished it by quoting him. I said there was a great man of the theater once wrote,

anything you do, let it come from you, then it will be new. Give us more to see. Give us more to see. And I sent that off. He sent me back a card, you know, where he said, sometimes the right thing comes at the right time. Your words came at exactly the right time.

Thank you. I am reinvigorated. I believe you, please give my best to your son. And, you know, it was just, it was a good. And I had never had that kind of heartfelt exchange with Steve. And the fact that it came back in that way and that it meant something to him, that card is framed. than sitting, you know, on a mantel.

So it's, it's, it's, it's, it's usually not from people, um, who I don't know and I'm surprised that I have, that have said something nice, it's from people that I know and I've always kind of been like, you know, I don't want to bother though, I don't want to I don't know, we're not friends exactly, we're not friends, what are we, you know, let's just keep it the way it is. Yeah. So it's, it's when people like that kind of go, hey, you know, you have value to me. I go, oh, okay.

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you heard about them from my show. I mean, you're very humble, but you've done everything. I mean, you really have. I mean, you've actor, comedian, film and stage director, magician, dancer. You've done Broadway. You've won a Tony. You've won. At this point in your life, it's like, do you really need to do anything? And you keep doing things. Like the show, Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which is one of the best shows around. You appear on that. And you're always, do you feel like you love, just love working? Or do you feel like you need some more, you need structure? I mean, do you seem like someone who just loves to do what they do. I do. You're right. I don't. You're, you don't. You you know, I could step back and agree and say,

I don't need to wear. I don't need to make a living. Thank you, God, and Jerry Seinfeld. But I enjoy being challenged by something. Unfortunately, a lot of the things that come to me as an actor are not terribly challenging. They're knockoff versions of something somebody has seen me do before. And in their heart of hearts,

they'd like me to recreate it, you know. and that stuff doesn't interest me but if somebody says you and I would not want to be an actor on a mediocre show but if somebody says hey would you direct this I go well that's interesting because can I as a director

elevate this thing in some way that's an interesting challenge so by being challenged you open yourself up to a range of things that you might not otherwise want to do and you know the variety of things that I sort of forced myself to do have always come from, well, that could be interesting. The second Broadway show I did was a musical called The Rink.

And when I went for the first audition, they went, you roller skate, right? And I went, of course, absolutely. Yeah, never been on them in my life. And they said, well, in two weeks, you come back and we're going to do the skating audition. So in two weeks, I had to go get an education on. And, you know, that's the kind of stuff that I look back on and I go, well, that was sheer madness. That was just stupid to say that I could do something with proficiency that I had never done. But it was also stroke of genius because in two weeks you go out and you fumble your way through it and then I got that gig. So that's how I've stumbled on to most of the stuff I've had

to learn to do. You know, can you be a, do stand-up comedy? No. Well, here's an opportunity. Oh, okay. Give it a shot. Really? You're fearless. You're still fearless after all these years. I have, I have, I am aware, I'm daunted, I'm not undaunted, but I also look at it and go, you know, if I screw it up, nobody dies, nobody gets hurt. It's okay. I wish I thought. All I can be is a little embarrassed and humiliated. And if it goes well, it was an experience. I wish I thought like that. I remember watching an interview with you and you were doing an episode, uh, of Seinfeld, the marine biologist. You were doing it, and they didn't have it. And so they asked you at the end, tell this story. Because to me, it just scared the shit out of me.

Really? That they could say, how fast can you learn a monologue? Well, really, that story is, I tell this story all the time. Because to me, it's a testament to Jerry and Larry David about not giving up on something until it's right. So the ending of that episode, for those people who may not remember it, my storyline was Jerry had met an old, a girl that I had always wanted to date in high school. And in order to impress her on my behalf, told her that I was a marine biologist.

And then when he tells me that, I go, that's not one of the things I can fake. I don't know how to fake that. So I was trying to pawn myself off as a marine biologist. And my storyline in that episode ended when I was walking with her. on the beach and there's suddenly a beached whale and somebody yells out is there a marine biologist and you see me you know like I'm a dead man walking off into the ocean to see if I can do anything that's well that was the end of my story and then the taping in front of the live audience there was a scene that I wasn't in with Jerry and Kramer and maybe a limb but I think it was just

Jerry and Kramer which was supposed to be the end of Kramer's storyline and it was fine it was funny but I guess the guys just weren't satisfied with the live audience response. They just thought it wasn't good enough to be the out for the show. So as they always did, the writers circled the wagons and the band started to play,

and then Larry came over and he went, clearly they had gotten an inspiration in the circle. Larry said, how long would it take you to learn a monologue? I said, how long a monologue? He said, I don't know, page and a half. I said, a couple minutes, you know. What?

And he had written this monologue, You know, the sea was angry that day, my friends. Kramer had a storyline where he had been hitting golf balls into the ocean to practice his drive. But they had never thought of why would there be a beach whale? Oh, there's a golf ball on the blowhole. So when they had that inspiration, they wrote this monologue for George to reveal that he went out and pulled the golf ball on the blowhole. There's no time or place to rehearse it. So they put some screens up between us and the audience.

We got onto the set. and the camera guys were given their shots we did one run-through of it just for ourselves just to make sure we had the lines and they pulled the screens away and said that the audience they're going to try something we'll see if it works and what you see when you watch that episode

is the first and only time we shot that new rewrite and that became one of the most it's one of the big highlight laughs of the entire series that was a laugh when I eventually pulled the golf ball out of my pocket to show it to Kramer. Is that a titleist?

Is that a titleist? There was a solid minute or more of laughter, which that's a lot of laughing where you can't go on, you can't do the next line because the audience is laughing that hard. That was huge. I mean, but to me, if a director came up and said, how fast can you learn a monologue? I'd probably say a week, maybe a week. Really? A monologue. I mean, what if you said you couldn't, like your mind doesn't work Do you think any cast member could have done that?

I know Julia could have done it. I don't know. Probably Jerry could have done it. I don't know about Mike, because Mike was always more of a physical guy than the words. Yeah, it's just one of those things I never struggled with. I did a one-man play in Los Angeles years ago where I played Harry Truman.

I mean, it's a play. It's a two-act play. You know, I learned it in two weeks. Two weeks, you probably learned 50 monologues. It was 80 pages of a monologue, yeah. 80 pages you learn in two weeks and give a performance on. But, no, but, you know, there are some people that that is a real, that's Sisyphus, you know, pushing in Iraq. I never had a problem with memorizing dialogue.

I wish I could apply that to anything else I read. I wish I could do it with math or history or science or anything else I studied. I'd be a genius. If someone just wrote it down as a play, I'd have it enough. What a gift that is. It's a photographic memory, right? You have a photographic memory. For that.

Just for that. It was... Still to this day? Still to this day, if someone gave you a mile out... Yeah, I don't struggle much with lines. So you never worry about lines at all, because that's always like the biggest thing for me. I need time. I want to really get into this.

I really need the... You know, you don't. You were so lucky. That's a beautiful thing. But honestly, don't, don't think less of yourself. I know all kinds of wonderful actors that really struggle for lines. It just, it's not, that's not how they're wired. And some people are, and I don't think it's a character for it.

I just think it's in the wiring, so. What about as a kid? Like, were you, a smart kid, were you, do you remember to get good grades? I had, I had fine grades. I was not a man, you know, It's like, I can't remember which side of the brain is creativity. Whatever side was creativity, that was okay. The other side was dysfunctional.

I couldn't do math or science. Once they introduced letters into math, I went, okay, I'm lost. I thought this was all about numbers. What's going on? And I couldn't hold abstract facts. So like, you know, two carbon atoms and an oxygen atom makes it. I just couldn't hold that stuff. Right.

But English history. the humanities all that stuff great bring it on if you told me a story i had it but there was no story to chemistry and math so i was lost i love the how much adversity you faced i mean i think you did because i read these two things and you've talked about them but the fact that you know you love magic and you know somebody said you can't really do that uh you could explain the story right i want you to talk about that but then the other one was when you went to boston university you know they were like, you know, you'll never do Hamlet because, you know, you're more of a character guy. You're too short. You're too whatever. Facing that kind of rejection early on is, could be

crippling and you could be like, I'm done. I'm out of it. I'm not, we're going to do magic again. I'm never going to do acting again. Whatever it is. But first start out because you were crazy about magic growing up. Yeah, because I was, I have older, I have half siblings that are 14 and 20 years older than me. So I didn't really grow up with them. And both my parents worked. So I was like a latchkey kid and I was a shy kid and I um and so I didn't have a big circle of friends and uh I was I was kind of small and always a little happy so I was an easy target for the bullies and I walked around kind of fearful and magic made me feel powerful it's like ooh I can do something somebody else can't so that's why I liked it but I really did love it and I

got pretty serious about it even as a little kid I really spent a lot of time working on the and I wanted to be a close-up guy. I wanted to do, I wanted to make the magic in my hands. And by the time I was 12, 13 years old, I knew enough kids who were into it. I went to a magic camp, basically. And I was trying to work on this. But a prestigious camp, right?

Yeah, it was a lot of the Tannin's magic camp. Right. And one of the, you know, pros looked at my hands and he said, you know, you're going to have a hard time because you got little hands. To this day, I can barely. palm a standard playing card. One little corner will always peek out, or I have to spread my fingers

and you can see it. And so it eliminated a lot of card possibilities from me. And once you took away, and even like coin tricks, it is better to have a longer finger. You can just manipulate easier if you have bigger hands.

And he basically waved me off of close-up. He didn't say don't do magic. He just said, close-up was going to be hard for you. But that's what you wanted to And that broke my heart. So I, you know, that kind of, but it broke my heart because I didn't in that moment have anything that I was equally passionate about. And hard on the heels of that came my first opportunity to get into, get in with the theater kids and do theater. And that quickly, that passion quickly replaced the magic one.

Um, the, the thing, the gift that was given to me in college by a professor named Jim Spruill no longer was. I thought it was going to be a dramatic actor. I thought I was going to, you know, I was really interested in doing the great dramatic roles, the Shakespearean roles, whatever. Um, and I didn't see myself as particularly amusing or funny. You know, clearly I was. Everybody else could see it. I couldn't see him. Right.

The mirror and I were not communicating. So the second semester of my sophomore year, this guy pulls me into his office, and I'm, you know, I'm 20 pounds overweight. I'm already starting to lose my hair. And he says, look, I know your heart and soul is Hamlet, and I think you'd actually be a terrific hamlet, but no one is going to cast you to play Hamlet. You should get good at Falstaff. And he was basically saying, if you want to have a commercially successful career, you've got to start doing more. get more comedy. Don't think about comedy.

And it kind of spun my head around because I hadn't really thought about it. And then I created for myself a syllabus of, well, study these people. Why are they funny? How are they funny? What are they doing? Who did you study? Oh, everybody. I went, I went, literally, I think I wrote it down on a yellow legal pet about people I had to

watch and listen to her. So I already had the comedy albums. I had Carlin and Cosby and Newhart, you know, you name of whoever was putting out albums. And then I went back to things and people that made me left. Why was Jerry Lewis funny? Why was Jackie Gleeson funny? Why was Lucille Ball funny? Why was Joan Rivers funny?

And just, you know, really, why were the old silent comics funny? What physically were they doing that made something that could have been mundane, suddenly spectacular? tactually clever, and just try to, you know, go, oh, they have kind of a sound of these. Oh, they do a, they don't see the thing, and then they see the thing. Oh, they let the, they use obstacles to get them from keeping this. So it was like this little tricks here and there. You know, the one that we used all the time on Seinfeld, and it was a huge, once I went, that's a good one, it covered a multitude of sins.

there was a if you remember the old honeymoon show whenever Jackie Gleason would get angry at Alice

because Alice was right about something and go you know it was just this yes

and I started using that as George Jerry would say something snide to me and I'd go and it would get a big

laugh and I go Jackie Gleason okay so and George to me when I auditioned for the show

I was doing Woody Allen I was doing a blatant Woody Allen imitation. And that's what got my foot in the door, and then it slowly morphed into Larry David. But, you know, my sensibility about humor is all stolen.

It's just gone. I think we have to steal. We all do. I think there's a little Jim Carrey in me, a little Chris Farley in me, a little Dudley Moore maybe in me. I don't know. There's like things that I just,

I watched Arthur probably a million times. It was one of my faith. He's taking the knife out of the cheese. You think it likes cheese? Let's see, let's see if you haven't, ready? Arthur, give me your hand. Well, that would leave you with one. Take my hand. Take my hand.

Take my hand. My favorite line in Arthur, I think, is when she says, when I was six years old, my mother died. And he goes, oh, God, damn it. Don't they know what that does the children? And when I was 11, my father left me. He's like, oh, so you had six relatively good years. That's just a dream of it.

So after this, so you've, it sounds like to me like you got inspired when this teacher at Boston University said this and you're like, you started doing all the research, you started doing all this. And the next thing you know, I mean, you're jumping in. You're doing Broadway, not that. I mean, how long after? Well, I had a little leg up going in because I fell into a children's theater company that somehow managed to get itself on TV for one episode of a thing when I was 14-ish. And it got seen by a management company. So I had, I had, I had, reps when I was a young teenager and I had already started doing commercials by the time I went to college. So I had like, you know, a little bit of a, you might be okay before I went. But I was auditioning for stuff all through college and then, yeah, I got a film after my, the summer after my junior year. The film ran late. I couldn't get back. So I took one semester off. And in that semester, my Broadway debut. happened and you know things started to really jump um but it was you know i i be it's not that i didn't have a sense of humor it's not that i had never done like i did the odd couple in high

school i i knew how to do that stuff but again um when i went to college for acting it was like a revelation to me that you could that there were skills and craft to acting because what i had been doing all the long was going, who would be good in this part? Oh, I'll just imitate them. So when I did the odd couple, I did Walter Matho. I mean, I was just imitating Walter Matho. Can you do a good Walter Mathel? I could at the time, Felix. You don't get all wrong, asshole. I told you a million times not to leave little notes on my pillow. You know, it's, yeah, so it was doable. So I, you know, I had felt around on it. I had a sense of humor. My parents were funny, you know, funny for non-professional people that could tell a good

story. And so I had some raw material to work with. I had some instincts. I just never valued them. And then I began to go, well, you know, being funny could be valuable. That's not a bad thing. What was the first big show? The one, the big show, the big Broadway show. That broke for me. In fact, it's so funny because when I finish with you today, I have to go on Seth Redensky's podcast. We're having a reunion. Really? It's been 40 years. It was Stephen Sondheim and George Firth wrote a musical version of a play by Kaufman and art called Merrily We Roll Along.

It was directed by Hal Prince, and I was 20 years old when I got that gig. And you just think, well, I'm working with Christ and Moses. This is going to be going to change my career, change my life. And Merrily is a now historic qualified flop. Our production is certainly a flop by any measure. But the show, because I think mostly because of Sondheim's genius score, the show has been done over and over and over and over, and Ben Platt and Beanie Feldstein are doing a movie version of it

that they're going to take 20 years to shoot because it's a show that follows these main characters from the time they're in their late 40s to the time they're in their early 20s, and it goes backwards. And so the cast of this movie is they're doing it with Richard Lincoln, who's known for those 20-year projects. Right. They're filming it now and they film a little bit every year and it'll be done 18 years from now and hopefully they won't realize what we already know, which is it doesn't really work. But let them learn that for themselves.

Yeah. They'll learn. That's, do you prefer doing stage because it seems to be like Broadway, isn't it like eight to nine shows a week? Only eights, hopefully. Yeah. Isn't that grueling? Isn't that a grueling schedule? It is grueling. And it's hard to understand without doing it why it would be so brilliant because it looks from the outside like you're only working six days a week. You do have one day off and you're doing eight shows in those six days. But, you know, the longest show on Broadway is three hours. So on your worst day, you're working three hours. You get an hour and a half off.

You work another three hours. You go home and it seems like that should be doable. It is you must live a monastic life. You cannot do anything else. The demands of exploding on a stage that many times a week, cost you physically, costs you vocally. You can't go to a restaurant and talk over the noise. You can't, if you enjoy a drink or two, you really can't drink. You have to keep your body in shape.

You have to get your rest. You have to kind of conserve what you've got in order to do the job. And theater actors are committed to the job. You know, they know they have to get it. It has to be there. You can't do another take. You can't, I'll get it tomorrow. So there's a discipline to being a stage actor and a joy that a company is being bad

that's either in your DNA or it's not in your DNA. I know glorious actors that I wish I had a fifth of their talent. they will not get on a stage. They just won't do it. Right. So it's either, have you done a stage? Yeah, I did a ton of plays in college and then after I did off, off Broadway,

like New Jersey Broadway. Yeah. But I've done a lot of, probably about 20, 25 plays. And given the opportunity, would you do a Broadway run? I think I would. If it was the right part of it was the right show, yeah, I think I would. It'd be scary as shit.

But did you have, were your nerves up when you did those things? Or were you just excited? There was one play, and it was a weird period of time. I was doing that Neil Simon play, the thing I worked on Neil Simon for it. And that was my third Broadway show. So I hadn't had a very happy career going for, you know, a solid eight, nine, ten years. And suddenly in the middle of that play, there was a period where the set was a two-story set. And that second story was a little,

dicey and I have a small fear of heights anyway so I was always a little a little intimidated working on that second sort but there was a period in the play where my character goes to sleep uh it takes a nap in full view of the audience for about 10 minutes while another scene plays out and then I have to wake up and end the first act and one night a couple of weeks into the run as I was lying on that bed I had an anxiety attack which I had never had in my life and I was I was panicking I mean I felt like my heart was racing. I couldn't breathe. And I thought, how am I going to finish this?

I can't get through it. And, you know, it came back the next night. It was like, oh, my God, it's here again. It's happening again. It became chronic. And I got really scared. I thought, I can't keep doing this. And I talked to a couple therapists about it, trying to see if it was something I could do medicinally or, you know, and nothing worked. I finally confided in my acting teacher. It was a dear friend of mine. And I said, you know, I'm embarrassed to even share this with you, but I'm having this crippling anxiety every night in the show. And how old are you here?

27. 27. And I said, you know, I feel like I'm going to ruin the show. I'm going to ruin the thing. And I'm waiting for this very sympathetic response from him. And he comes back at me and he goes, you know you're a fucking egomaniac? I went, what? You're making it all about you. You're going to destroy the play. You're going to do the thing. You're going to do that. You're going to do that. It's not

about you. Nobody's there for you. They're there for the story. Tell them the fucking story. And I went, that is brutal, but I went to the theater that night, no anxiety. The next night, no anxiety. It was gone. Are you serious? Just like that? He must have gotten into some odd spiral that I had done that was just manifesting itself.

And he just got me out of me by saying that. And believe me, I studied with Larry Moss, and I had studied with Larry Moss for four or five years up to that. that point and I stayed with him another 10 after that point so he was he was my guy but yeah that was crippling and there's always the the good nerves the you know I'm excited about this I want to do if there's if you're not feeling anything like that it's time to hand the part over to somebody else yeah there should be a little bit of oh all right let's go I'm excited about this let's play and if if that's not happening so what happened later in life you started if you got anxiety then you go to your wife, and she goes, oh, shut the F.

You have a family. It's all about you. This family, it's all about you, you ecomania. Exactly. Yeah, I opened a very bad door. I'm not allowed to have a bad day. Grocery shopping, Cha-ching.

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Follow and listen on your favorite podcast platform. You said you had a really tough audition process during when you did Pretty Woman. Well, it wasn't tough. I had one audition meeting with Gary Marshall. And he said, it's good, you can do it, it's good, it's good, it's good, the effect. Which is good feedback, but there was no way he wanted me for this part. I was not what he had in his head. He thought I was too young, too baby-faced, and too small.

He knew that there was this physical confrontation with Richard Gere's role, and I think the line that the casting of the Tommy said Gary felt like it would look like Richard was beating up a dwarf and since Disney's producing this film and they're protective of dwarfs so Gary I was a non-starter

for Gary and without naming the actor he wanted because that wouldn't be fair but he knew who he wanted and they couldn't make a deal with that actor the guy just wouldn't do it for the money he wasn't interested and now the movie was shooting and that role has to start, and they don't have anybody.

And the casting director, a woman named Diane Crittenden, loved me for this role. She just kept bringing me up, and Gary would get angrier and angry to the point where he said, if you say his name again, I'm going to fire you, you know. And I think it was like days before this character had to start, and she somehow got Richard Gere to agree, to have me go to his office.

And she brought a video camera. And our height difference, you know, was not, it was not nothing. So she, they put phone books on the floor, and I stood on the phone books to sort of approximate Richard's height a little more. And we played one scene that she shot. And then Richard took that tape to Gary, threw it on his desk, and went, this is the guy. And it was under those circumstances that I walked into Pretty Woman

with a director that was not crazy to have me, But then at the end of our first day, he went, I was wrong, you're the best we could have. And so he, he did a complete 180. So Richard Gere stuck up for you and fought for you. He did. He did. Richard, I mean, because of Diane Prittenden and Richard Gere, that movie happened for me. Without both of them, it would not have happened. And how long did you have to prepare for that role? Day. I mean, I think we made that tape on a Wednesday or Thursday, and I had to, I think I started shooting on Monday or Tuesday.

And how pumped were you? You're doing a movie with Richard Gear. Was this like this is one of the biggest things you're doing right now? Yeah, of course. First of the first of it's a movie. I mean, it's like a real, I had done a movie, but it was nothing. This was a movie. And I think I would have been on cloud nine, except, A, it was happening. so fast. And B, I was really, I knew this director doesn't, he's not behind me. He's not happy I'm here. And Pretty Woman was a movie, Richard, when I got in the makeup trailer on the first day, Richard had been shooting for a couple weeks. And he said, get ready, because I don't know what movie we're making here. I said, what do you mean? He said, you'll see, you'll see. So, I mean, it's a famous story now, but pretty woman on paper was a much more serious film. They didn't end up together at the end.

The depiction of life as a street prostitute was a little more realistic. It didn't have a lot of its charms. And Gary was, in some ways, manufacturing this movie out of his head. So you'd get on the set and thinking you were going to do one thing and you wind up doing something completely different. So my first day, I walk onto the set, and it's a short scene about the business machinations between our two characters. And, you know, I had a couple of things. I said, well, my character must be very deferential to this rich, powerful boss. He's going to be. I had some ideas, not many, but.

And Richard had on a very fancy pair of shoes that day. They were just gorgeous, but they were like striking. For a men's shoe, it was a very striking shoe. And Gary noticed it. And so when we came over to rehearse, we started running the dialogue. And Gary went, wait, wait. When Richard comes in, talk about his shoes.

Oh, all right. Okay. And so I started busting Richard's chops about it. Pretty fancy. Look at you. Dinkerbell. So we're playing. And Gary's laughing.

He goes, let's shoot it. So we shoot. maybe one line from the script and a bunch of gell gobbledy gook about shoes and Gary goes cut good let's move on and I go well wait a minute what about the other lines

and he goes shoes are good and I look at Richard and Richard goes that's what I'm talking about. Oh my God when we wrapped Pretty Woman we all had a great time but we thought this will never see the light of day there's no movie

there's no story there's nothing here And Gary had it all. We just couldn't see the far as for the trees. Now, did they make you wear apple boxes since in the audition? They made you taller for the thing. There were times when a manmaker was called for. Is that what it's called a manmaker? You know, the little inch and a half box, it's not really an apple box.

Quarter apple. A pancake. But in my case, they always called it a manmaker. It's a normal man's statute. Yes, many a time. Now, because of pretty woman, that's how the whole. George Costanza came out, right? That's how you get sort of...

That is part of the mythology that I've been told. So somehow Gary Marshall, they were looking for George. Gary Marshall married to Penny Marshall, Penny Marshall, ex-wife of Rob Reiter, Rob Reiner, Head of Castle Rock.

He says, oh, I heard this guy, I saw a clip from the movie. He might be good. You should put him on tape. That's what I've heard. Is that somehow it played him. And that's how it kind of starts, So how did you get this?

I mean, I know you probably told this story a million times, but to get this audition, because I want to hear about the kind of the Neil, the, what's his name, Woody Allen kind of thing? And you put the glasses on. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, again, I lived in New York at the time. All the casting on sign phone was being done in L.A.

They had seen a gazillion people, I guess, for George. Some very famous, who I think had been offered the role and either turned it down or they got, Nexters. Do you know any of them or you don't say? Yeah, I know Chris Rock, Danny DeVito. One of the guys they really liked for it, and I think he said no, was Paul Schaefer. Wow. Yeah, so, I mean, they were kind of a little all over the map.

And somebody said, you know, we should put some doctors on, we should get some New York actors into the mix. So that meant calling a New York casting director and just saying, look, we'll send you a couple of pages. is we're looking for a sidekick, you know, a funny sidekick best friend to Jerry Seinfeld. About this age, you know, no real description, just sort of a, your, your standard young, youngish character actor. And you were like, who the hell is Jerry Seinfeld at this point? You probably didn't really know much. I was a fan of Jerry Seinfeldon. You were.

You were. You were. I didn't know who the hell Larry David was. Oh. I knew Jerry Seinfeld. So I was one of the ones, maybe through this Gary Marshall connection, and they called and said, put him on tape. And all I had was four pages

from the pilot script with no context and nobody asked about it. Because the casting record didn't know the project. She was just being paid to put some people on tape. So you quickly memorize them, of course. Memorizing, no problem. But I went, what do I do? What is this thing? So to me,

it read like the dialogue in a Woody Allen show. And I went, all right, let's go with that. So I didn't wear glasses at the time. I went out and got, you know, got some frames. And I not only did a New York, a thick New York accent, I literally was doing Woody Allen. You know, the gestures and the, in the, that voice.

That voice. Yeah. Jerry, it's ridiculous. You know, I'm doing Woody Allen. There's blatantly, nobody would mistake it. Maybe not a good Woody Allen, but definitely a guy trying to do Woody Allen. Wow. And I finished the tape and I went,

I'll never say that again and a couple days later got a call I think from Larry said love everything you're doing you know coming out we want to have you meet Jerry you'll read for the network and I flew out and they said don't change a thing except not don't do the Woody Allen voice do New York do the glasses do all that but just don't do the Woody Allen voice and I show up to read for the network and there's one other person reading that day. Now, I don't know Jerry Seinfeld about it, but I do know one thing, and that is one of his best

friends in the world, at least at the time, was the comedian Larry Miller, who I had been a pretty woman with. And that's the other guy reading that day. And I go, well, this is the writing's on the wall. Of course, he's going to use his buddy. He doesn't know me. So I went in to do the and I was loose. I was loosey-goosey, and I just had a great time going, I'm not going to get guess. So just have fun. And I guess we, you know, we just clicked. I left the audition, got on a plane that night, came back to New York, and by the time I landed, they went, you got it.

And you didn't know, I mean, obviously, you didn't have any idea if this was going to be a success. You shoot the pilot. When you did it, were you like, did it feel like sort of like the pretty woman atmosphere? Like, what the hell are we doing here? What is this? There's a funny moment where, you know,

we were having our rap party on the pilot, and Jerry says to me, what do you think? You think we got a shot? And I, honestly, I wasn't trying to be funny. I went, you know, I don't think so. You don't think it's good? I said, no, no, no. I do think it's good.

That's part of the problem. I said, you know, at the time that we made that pilot, the number one comedy on TV was Alf. It felt to me like our show was designed for an audience of men, not women, men, maybe 20. 20 to 35 years old who lived in a city and better if they were Jews. That seemed to be the audience, right? And I went outside of that audience, no one's, and those people don't watch TV.

I think it is funny. I don't watch TV. So there's not going to be an audience for this, and they're not going to do well. I was kind of right. It tested horribly, horribly. Really? And they did not pick it up as a pilot. They didn't pick it up.

But in those days, the networks to fill space would just throw. all the dead pilots on. They'd find a time slot and kill a time slot with a dead pilot. And they aired the pilot and a critic, I think it was a TV guide. The critic wrote it a love letter. And

everybody went, huh, everybody, not me. I mean, the people at NBC. Right. Went, huh, I wonder if we missed something here. And they decided they would give it another shot by making it a summer sort of special, a series of specials. And with

that meager order of four more episodes. And the addition of Julia, who was not in the pilot, we made four more and they tested terribly too. But we kept hanging in there because the people that did watch were that audience I was talking about, men from 20 to 35 years old, which was a very tough demographic for advertisers to get. And the fact that they were our audience, there was always somebody willing to pay the advertising time to hear of the show. So that's why we hung in there as long as we How long did it take to really feel like you guys were together in this? Like, you just meshed.

You felt like something was made. Because in the pilot, usually the pilot, he's still figuring it out. You're looking out for your own ass. You don't really know that let him do him, let her do her, I'll do me. When did it finally, I mean, did you feel like there was any magic or any kind of connection or did it take a while? How long? Yeah, no.

So from the get, what was interesting is, because you rehearse like a play, you know, you rehearse for several days. Yeah. I find on single camera shows, if you're not in the scene, either you don't, you have no reason to be at the studio,

or if you're there and you're waiting for your scene, you're in your dressing room. You're not hanging out on the set. Right. We hung out on the set. Nobody ever left the stage, and we've watched scenes we weren't in and go, hey, maybe, you know, it might be funny if you,

you know, we were kind of helping each other. And I would say So we did a pilot And then we did four Four more pilots Yeah four of episodes And then they decided we would be a mid-season show So we came back to do 13

And somewhere very early in that 13 I noticed that we were all Like Instead of fighting for a bit for yourself I remember saying This line that I have would be so much funnier on Julia. I mean, it would just be so unexpected. It's, it was just a big at Jerry. And I say it would just be more unexpected if it came out of her mouth. And so we tried it

and it worked so much better. And that became sort of the thing of we weren't precious about it. It has to be me. It has to be me. It was. The only time I ever made a stink and Larry David will tell you that it was notorious, is somewhere, I think, in the four episodes, it might have been the 13th. They did an episode that I was not in. I wasn't in it, and Kramer wasn't in it. It was about Jerry and Elaine going to Florida to visit his family. I remember that one. And I came back the following week and we got to the table read and we did the table read. And then I said to Larry and Jerry, can I talk to you guys for a minute? Now, remember, I was just visiting L.A.

This show was not a hit. So every time we were in, I had left my home, sometimes with my wife, sometimes not, you know, because we weren't making big money. So I couldn't always afford to just have her with me. And the show was by no means performing in any way that looked like the success it would become. So I said to them, look, guys, I'm happy to be here. I'm thrilled to be here if you need me. But if you don't need me to be in this show, I don't want to be in the show. I can go back and do the career I had.

I was perfectly happy. I'm happy here. But I said to Larry, if you write me out again, do it permanently. And he went through the head. He just went, it's not possible. How do you? You can't. It's four people.

I can't. You know, he was like apoplectic. And I went, I hear you. I get it. I don't want to be that guy. But honestly, I don't need to be here unless I need to, unless I need to, unless, I'm needed here. And I look back at it now and go, Jesus Christ, what were you doing? But at the time, it felt like I was making a sacrifice in my life to do this show that wasn't performing for anybody

yet. And I was very happy to go back and go back to Broadway and stuff that I knew I could reliably get. And so I was a cavalier. Wow, you just said what you wanted to say and didn't give a shit. But he wasn't necessarily mad at you, though, was he? He wasn't mad. Well, I don't think so. I mean, you know, we've talked about it in interviews where he went, you little asshole, you know, I'm like, yeah, I know, but, you know. But I did feel that way, because I felt like it was very possible.

When I did the pilot, there was no Elaine, there was no other best friend, there was the annoying neighbor, and me, and that was the show, and the star. Now they have this girl come in. and she's not his girlfriend she's his ex-girlfriend so she's his female friend and I went well now you got two best friends

so do you write for the girl do you write for the guy the girl's going to be more interesting my part's going to go not line-wise but they just won't there was no character yet you didn't know

you didn't know why you needed George or why you needed Elaine or whose story would tell what so I just thought well one of us is going to be superfluous and now it looks like it's going to be me because I'm not in this episode yeah so I don't

you know I don't want to be the character they don't need I just don't want to be that guy right so that's that's why I said that who broke the most on the set the one that just couldn't keep their shit together always laughing and who is your favorite who and who's the one who made you crack up the most

oh well jury would always I mean you can watch the episode to see Jerry on the verge of breaking all the time. Jerry was the easiest to break. But when Julia would go, when Julia broke, she took everybody with her. When she started laughing, it was impossible to not. I could stay in character with Jerry.

Everybody lost it with Julia. The one who killed me more often than not was Jerry Steller. Really? There was just, well, first of all, I'm madly in love with him. I just, one of the joys in my life was sharing time with him. But there was something about Jerry Stiller is so not Frank Costanza. They are just like totally different people.

And where Jerry had to go to dig that character up and he had, this is the secret of Frank Costanza, Jerry had lined issues. He really thought he couldn't remember his lines. He could, but he was really concerned about it. And the way they would come to him in performance was in like three words at a time. And he would get so frightened and frustrated by it that it created the rhythms of the Frankestan's character. And they were just so odd and crazy and had nothing to do with the reality of the situation. So what it inferred was this tortured backstory of this poor man who has to deal with these people.

It was just funny. And he would have malapropisms because he'd remember the lines just the wrong way. And he also had that great hang dog face that when it would get close, you just had to hold on and go, all right, I'm going to try and get through this. So he could break, he and Estelle, like my mom. Yeah. They could break them pretty easily. But they weren't trying to, but they could, I have a lot of bluepers with them. Does your family like Seinfeld, do you, do you?

kids watch Seinfeld? Have they seen it? Do they care? Was your wife always like, this is a great show? I love it. My wife was very much a part of the reason I was successful at it, because while Dana is not an actress, she doesn't do that. She did study to be an actress, and she studied with Larry Moss. It was my guru. In fact, she introduced me to Larry Moss. So Dana, the way I come in stuff is a way that Dana understands. And she came to the first, we did 180 episodes I think Dana was at 100 tables Wow

and you know I would do the first take of a scene and Larry would come over and give me a note or Jerry would and then I'd go over with Dana and she'd say something and I'd go right right and incorporate it so she was very much in my ear and on my shoulder in the creation of that character

and she was invested in the show my kids no I think I mean the story I've told before is when my older son gave it was about 12 that's when his peers were becoming aware of the show

and he would hear you know hey your father's George and he never watched it you know he knew what it was because it was where daddy went to work but he could care less and he finally said

what is this stuff what is it what is the show so I had videos of them at the time and I said well here's a couple of funny episodes I was going to take a look. This is what it is. So he goes in the TV room and he watches two or three episodes. And he came out and I'm, you know, I'm waiting for him to go,

hey, that's good. You're funny. You know, I go, what are you thinking? He goes, you're kind of an asshole. And that was his assessment of the whole thing. That's amazing. It's not something my boys were. I think both of my sons, well, appropriately proud of their father,

have a healthy disinterest in most of what I do and because they're both my older son Gabe is absolutely an actor and a writer and very funny guy who would love to have a career the way we do and lives under the shadow of well my dad was this and my dad has this level of success and that never helps the son or the daughter of

and my younger son who does voice acting so he doesn't aspire to everything i do but you know he's peripherally in the business through that uh air but they really are unimpressed with showbiz and me and um that's probably healthy isn't it i think it's i think it's healthy yeah i do you know i love this story how jerry Seinfeld used to have you guys come in his dressing room every every Christmas, like at the halfway point of the season. And he used to say, another? Like, should we do another season? Right. And you guys all would be like, yeah, yeah, this is, you know, you know, of course, let's do it. Yeah. And I just, just briefly, just you can talk, I just want you to talk about that the final season where you both felt, you, you all felt like this is it. Yeah.

You know, my memory is we probably came into that season going feels like we're getting there. And it wasn't that I, Larry David left after the seventh season and we did two more seasons after that.

For me personally the loss of Larry was a big loss because Larry was George and Larry had an understanding of that character in the scripts that nobody else could have. And so for me, while there were good stories and good writing,

the essence of the character was a little diminished because he wasn't there to help fill that void. But we got to the halfway point of the final, what became the final season, and we got into the room, and Jerry went, what do you think? And for the first time, he wasn't sort of leading the witness. He wasn't going, but he got, yeah, we got another route.

He was like, seriously, what do you guys think? And we all voiced the, yeah, it's probably, it's probably not a bad idea to let it go. And I know for me personally what it was about, I felt like the show could continue to be funny because the writers were funny. And we somehow always were able to find the funny every week. but I felt like we couldn't surprise the audience anymore that the characters in their eccentricities were in some ways predictable. Give them a situation

and you kind of know how they're going to roll on it. And to me, if there is no good indicator of when a show is ready to kind of wind down, that could be one that serves pretty well. When you become somewhat knowable and predictable, that could be a good indication. And, you know, the spiritual leader of our show was Jerry,

who as a professional comic has to know when to get off the stage. Another three jokes are going to kill the high that I've just achieved and or, you know, comparatively, I haven't landed the big one yet to go off on. So he had a sense of that, too. And I think that's why he was leading the witness in that meeting going, don't you kind of think we're kind of? And I also feel like, in retrospect, he had no life for nine years.

If he went, I mean, we all had a cushy life. We went and did other things. Our work week was four days a week. You know, two of those days were six hour days. The cushiest job in the world. He was either in the writer's room, the editing room, the casting room, where we had four months down, he had maybe four weeks down

before they had to start coming up with stories for the next season. So I think after nine years and everything he had not done in order to do the show and the amount of success in every way that it had brought on,

I think he was kind of like, I don't want to die here, you know? I'd like to get some of my life back. So I think his attitude led us to it. But I don't think it was wrong. Did you guys? Did you ever see any of them cry when it ended?

Did everybody cry? Or was it kind of like, all right, great, let's go? Yeah, we had a moment. So on an audience show, there's a warm-up guy who warms with the audience, gets them in the spirit. You know, okay, you're going to be part of the show, you're going to laugh. And it's all that crap. And they introduced the cast. You have like a, hey, so it's time to meet the cast.

And they'd call us out one at a time and we come out, wave. So when we were backstage during those intros, we did a thing, and we did it all nine years called The Circle of Power. It meant nothing. It was just the four of us would huddle up. We basically go, okay, have a good show. All right. It's stupid. And then we go out and be introduced. The Circle of Power meant nothing. It was nothing. It was just a moment to say, have a good show. On the final episode, and we were a very unsentimental group. There was a, it's now famous, there was a sign over the writer's room door that said, no hugging, no learning. You know, that's not who we are.

We got in the circle of power and Jerry said, hey, can I, I want to say something seriously. Okay. And he said, for the rest of our lives, whenever anybody thinks of one of us, they're going to think of all four of us. and there are not three other people on this planet I would rather have that be true of. And that, and first of all, the sentiment itself was beautiful, but from a very unsentimental guy

at a very unsentimental time, it just hit us like a brick, you know? And then they go, so let's meet the class, and we'll come out, like the tears are flowing. Oh, my God. Everybody, everybody. Yeah, right, you know. Yeah, we were, we were,

pretty smitten by that. Oh, that's great. But, you know, it's, I mean, you know, you've been there. I know. It's that moment. I was, this is a family that's not going to be a family. I was on a show that was called Zoe Duncan, Jack and Jane that lasted a year. That was supposed to be the young Seinfeld. They put us banners everywhere in the show.

And we shot in the old Seinfeld studio at CBS Radford. And it did not, yeah, it didn't do well. But, you know, what could be Seinfeld? That's another thing. It's like, once you do Seinfeld, people could always say, like, well, he's not done anything as big as Seinfeld. Because there's nothing best big as Seinfeld. Well, I mean, that's the question I get all the time is, you know,

do you get upset talking about the show from 30 years ago? You know, I've had a wonderful career since Seinfeld, but nothing near as big as that show. And they go, how does that feel? And I go, I didn't expect one. I was going to be a Broadway actor. I was lucky. I was going to go from Broadway show to Broadway show, make a nice little living and work in the theater. I didn't expect any of this. Nobody, you can't go get this.

You can't plan for this. I said, it was a big deal that I was on a TV show. So a big deal I was on a TV show that was successful. There's a big deal that I got paid like I did for a TV show that's successful. Here's the biggest deal. You want to talk about it 30 years after we stopped making it? And that's like Star Trek turf. I don't know how to account for that. I don't know why people are still so excited about this show. I truly don't know. I don't begrudge it, but I don't quite understand it.

Why they are still so excited about this show, and it means so much to them that they want to talk to me about it. And I go, you know what? That means it was more than a passing piece of entertainment for you. It meant something in your life. And if something I did has that much value, value in your life. I am honored because that doesn't usually happen. We are shadows that flicker and then we disappear. And it has held substance for you and you want to talk to me and ask a

question about it or tell me how much you enjoy it or what it's meant to you. I am blown away and honored to hear that. I hear you. I mean, on a smaller scale, and people, you know, people still want to talk about small. I'm like, you know, it's the best thing I do. It's the biggest thing I do. Why wouldn't I want to talk about it? This is really quick. This is called shit talking with Jason Alexander. These are fast, rapid-fire questions. Dave P.

Dave P says, as a huge Star Trek fan, what was it like to have an actual role as an alien on Voyager? Hot shit, damn. And working between two kick-ass actresses, Jerry Ryan and Kate. Oh, my God, it was amazing. Awesome. Cindy H., do people recite your lines back to you? And if so, any that you can recall that they want you to say.

Here's what I get a lot of. Can't Stand you, Serenity now, master of my domain, shrinkage. I was in the pool. I get, you know, and the one that's really fun is can't stander. When you're walking down the streets, somebody goes, can't stand you. And I got, he's referencing a show.

He actually likes me. He's nothing. My favorite is, was it called the dot or the, the red dot? The red dot where the cleaning lady, where he asks you, he's like, did you know, you had a, what did he say? What did he say? He's coming to my attention. You've been having sexual relations with the cleaning woman on the

desk of your office. And my response was, is that wrong? Should I not have done that? That is an amazing one. That's amazing. Jerry W., favorite director and why? Joe Mantello. I worked with him on the movie version of Love, Ballard, Compassion. A thousand reasons why, but the biggest one being, I learned things as an actor by being directed by him. If you had to be on the spot right now to sing something in 10 seconds, what would it be? anything anything uh my audition song for most of my broadway career was corner of the sky from pippin rivers belong where they can ramble eagles belong where they can fly i've got to be where my spirit can run free got to find my corner of the sky god just like that no warm up

by the way when you did barbara strides was it for her birthday at the hollywood ball that you sang from Sweeney Todd in front of the whole Hollywood Bowl for her I mean that sounds like I wish I was there No I didn't swing from Twinkinie. We had Angela Lisbury and Led Carius singing from Sweeney Todd that day. Didn't you sing?

No, I sang for Barbara. Yes, it was very intimidating. What did you sing? Hell knows. I have no memory. I also had to go to her house in Malibu to meet, to possibly direct something that she was producing years ago

and she had hurt her back so she couldn't get out of bed. So she was in her bedroom. I was in the guest house and I did the interview over her intercom. Oh, I thought you were to be in her bedroom. That would have been the best. No, that would have been lovely, yes, but no. Jason, this has been an awesome, like a real treat for me. I really adore you.

Michael, what a pleasure. Seriously. You know, we got to have lunch together sometime. Let me get by you lunch. Let me do something. You don't have to buy me shit, but I will be happy to meet you. you know how to find me you have my email i have it call me email me we'll get together we'll talk uh my partner and i are about to launch a podcast ourselves i want to talk to you all about this

crazy business because you're a you're a young kid you know this turf i don't understand i'm not that old i'm not that young i'm very old actually i'm not that much younger than you how old you i'll be 50 next year what are you doing what do you eat well it's you don't lose 50 brother Evian skin cream. Yeah, sure. Little sunlight. God, almighty. You look fantastic.

You know, I'm hanging in there. I'm hanging in there. It's good lighting in here. I think it's better lighting. I think that's what's good. You look great. All right. I love you.

Thank you for allowing me to be inside of you today. This has been a real joy. My pleasure. Be well. Talk to you soon. All right. Much love. He just was an open book.

That was really cool. I love hearing the stories about his magic, how he loves magic. Yeah. I love hearing. how he likes to sing and he likes to dance and i like how much adversity he faced and how he he just uh did what he loved and he became tremendously successful doing it and he's just you can tell he's a grateful guy he's just a grateful good dude yeah and uh jason we're going to have lunch one day you gave me your email big mistake big mistake uh let's get into uh before we get into

the top tiers who make this show possible by giving back on patreon uh another reminder November 20th, I have two shows, my band. If you haven't seen us, just give us a chance. It's virtual. You can watch it from the comfort of your own home. 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. We have two shows on November 20th. Go to stage it.com.

Type in Sunspin or go to sunspin.com. You could also get merch there, but grab some tickets for you and some friends and enjoy some tender, sweet music. I think you'll like it. And yeah, also the inside of you online store, tons of merch. And Patreon, my lovable patrons who make this show possible.

I love you guys. Thank you, all of you. Seriously, I don't care if you give a dollar or a $5 or some of you give way more. It makes the podcast really doable. And I don't know what I would do without you. And I know that you guys love the podcast and I will continue to try to give you great shows. So thank you. If you want to join Patreon, go to patreon.com slash inside of you.

Patreon.com slash inside you. Right now, let's give a shout out to all our top. tier patrons, Ryan. Great. Nancy. D. Leah. F. Huh? What? What did you say? Leah? You said Leah? Yeah.

Uh-huh. What did you say? Remember. You were close. I didn't say F? You said F. I did say F. But it's S. It's F. Trisha F. Sarah V. Little.

Lisa. You. Kiko. Jill E. Brian. H. Mama Lauren. G. Nico. P. Jerry. W. Robert. B. Jason. W. Kristen. K. Amelia. O. Allison. L. Raj. C. Joshua. D. Emily. S. C.J. P. Samantha. M. Jennifer. N. Stacey. L. Jen. Oh, oh. No. C. S. J. J. Jemal. B. Kimberly. Kimberly. E. Mike. D. Close. What?

D. Mike D. E. Mike E. Oh. El Don. Supremal. 99.

Moore. Ra. Mira. Santiago. M. Sarah. V. No.

Sarah F. Chad. W. Yes. Leanne. P. Janine. R.

Maya. P. Maddie. S. Belinda. N. Chris. H.

Dave. R? What? H. Dave H. Yep. Spider-Man Chase Sheila

G Brad D Ray A Ch yes Tabitha T

Michelle B K Michelle King Michael Uh Rosenbaum No Michael

S Talia M Betsy D yes Claire I think it's clear I

Is it clear I Yes that's Quigley again Laura L Chad L L Rochelle Nathan E Marion Meg

Ryan Meg K Janel P Trab L, Dan N Big Steby W Kendall

T T is right Angel investor investor Angel M Rianin

C Corey L Corey K Super Sam Coleman G

Dev Nexon Michelle A yes A A, Liz I, Jeremy C, Andy T, Cody, R, Sebastian, the crab. K.

Oh, Gavinator. Yes, correct, Gavinator. And H, David. Uh, Borianus. C. David C. John Lennon. B. Brandy D.

You have four. Camille S. Ban. Fane. Bain. Baino. Baino. The C.

Correct. Joey M. Willie F. Christina E. Adelaide N. Jeffrey M. Omar. I. Lena N. Design O T.G. Eugene and Lee. Or Eugene and Leah. However you look at it, you got both of them. Sure. Chris P. Nicky G. Corey, KTB. Patriota. No, Patricia. Patricia. Patricia. My glasses. I need more. I need better glasses. Patricia. I'm sorry. Marie. And then I think this is Marla. Marla. Marla. n i'm going to say marian all right and bradley s great thank you guys so much for listening to the podcast i love you dearly thank you for making me smile thank you for caring about this podcast and myself and ryan and jason and bryce who works so freaking hard and i couldn't do it without them and i couldn't do without you and thank you for allowing to be inside of each and every one of you and please continue to listen to the show follow the show and from the holly Hollywood Hills in California. My name is Michael Rosenbaum.

My name is still, Ryan Taz. Get a little wave to the camera up there, Mr. Ryan. Bye. We love you guys. Hey, thanks so much for listening. And we'll talk to you next week. Hi, I'm Joe Sal C. Hi, host of the stacking Benjamin's podcast.

Today, we're going to talk about what if you came across $50,000. What would you do? Put it into a tax-advantaged retirement account. The mortgage. That's what we do. Make a down payment. on a home. Something nice. Buying a vehicle. A separate bucket for this

addition that we're adding. $50,000, I'll buy a new podcast. You'll buy new friends. And we're done. Thanks for playing everybody. We're out of here. Stacky Benjamin's, follow and listen on your favorite platform.