Jason Alexander discusses working with Larry David - EMMYTVLEGENDS.ORG

It's very funny Seinfeld wasn't an emotional scenario for the most part, surely oh, now it's legendary over the writer's door in Latin there was a phrase that meant you can't hug or learn. This was not a show where the characters grow where we learn things, life lessons. and that was reflected in every element of the show, we were a cast that constantly laughed with joy and affection, but you know, we weren't a group, we weren't a social group, that's why we don't see much of each other now we don't film a show on Friday and come on, let's go to dinner tomorrow night, see you on Monday, so we had no background after nine years of socializing and therefore we didn't immediately launch into a future of socializing, but I think Larry knows that I have an affection for him that maybe other people wouldn't normally feel.

My job was to see everything that was magnificent and loved and wonderful in him and use it, so I watched him carefully and I think he knows that I do. I also tell people right or wrong because neither Julie nor Michael nor I can really tell you the behind-the-scenes stories of the show. We didn't spend a lot of time there, but because of my sensitivity based on what I saw when I was there and my observations of the seven years Larry ran the program in the two years he wasn't. I think the Seinfeld show was more of a Larry show than a Jerry show.

I think Larry's sensibility led and dictated more directions we took than Jerry and I did. he said that before and whether he'll admit it or not, I think Larry appreciates that he agrees with it and I don't think most people think that because Gerry was in all of this and that's not to deny Gerry's contribution at all. Gerry. every cell on that show comes from Gerry, but I kind of praise Larry in a way that I'm not sure most people do, so I have as close a loving relationship with Larry as anyone in the middle of Seinfeld. and I found

working

with him to be great, it was like dealing with a family member.

I worked with the most difficult man in the world when I worked with Jerry Robbins and he wasn't afraid, so he wasn't afraid of Larry David and I think that was It was a fun thing for him, it was a fun thing. There were two times where I confronted Larry with an issue and, in retrospect, I'm not very proud of either of them, but like I say, when Julia first came on the show, I was a little threatened by that because I thought that the three-person show had become a four-person show and I really thought that she and I were two sides of the same coin and I wasn't sure if that was going to be interesting and I had no fantasies about it. a television career, I was a theater kid, so this was a turn off for me.

I didn't know if I was going to have longevity, but as long as I was doing something that I was having a really good time with, I was fine taking this detour and now this girl except and sure enough within four episodes they wrote an episode that Michael and I weren't in He, Jerry and Elaine were going to Florida. By the way, very good episode, but there was no organic way for George and Kramer to be in that episode and so Michael and I had a week off and I came back the next week and we did the reading for the next episode and then I went to the Larry's office and I said boy, I have to talk to you.

I said I totally get it, I get it. It was a great episode, no, no, I said, if you don't need me to be here every week, I don't want to be here, so if you write to me again, make it permanent and I mean, what are you talking about? do you know what? It's finding stories before characters and he's right, he's absolutely right, I mean I can only imagine the obstacles you have to overcome, but I was, I was what I was and I was, don't tell me your problems, I'll tell you yes No I need him to be here if I'm not vital to every episode of this show.

I do not want to be here. I don't want to do this and they never did it to me again. They did it to Michael again. but they never did it to me so that was my only confrontation I wasn't laughing the show wasn't a problem the show no one was watching the show this wasn't going to be a thing I could go back to New York and do whatever I wanted Did I still have my apartment in NY? My wife is fine. You know, we changed our lives to come to Los Angeles because I'm going to be number two on this show and now they're eliminating me. of episodes they paid me and they say that we gave you a week off they paid you for doing nothing I'm not interested in that there is a bit of an idiot the other episode was an episode called el bris the version that the table arrived, the moil character was disgusting, I think it's still disgusting on the show we did, but you have to go a long way to press my Jewish button.

I tell you that Jews are funny and you can be really sacrilegious with me and I'll take all the Jewish jokes you got, even the borderline offensive one was for a non-Jew, the whole practice of circumcision, bris, is mysterious and kind of disgusting, and for present the figure of the moil, the person who goes, I will be the boy, my life's work will be to remove the foreskin from the genitals of young Jews, that is what I dedicate my life to, he is already a person of questionable character for non-Jews and to do That a child who hates self-hatred is disgusting.

The incompetent with his mouth open to me was anti-Semitic in a hurtful way and I went to Larry and said, I'm not going to be in this episode, this one you have to eliminate me if I have to boycott this and I said, Kiki, listen exactly. what I said - no, I'm willing to listen to every Jewish joke you have, this is an offense and he didn't see it at first and then he said, "I'm going to soften him up, I'm going to soften him up." No, he's fine and I still think he was. I'm not proud of that episode at all.

I'm not proud of that portrayal and I don't think it was a particularly good element in another pretty good episode, but those anomalies.