Jason Alexander Reveals When He Realized George Costanza Is Larry David

at what point did you realize that the character that you were playing is basically Larry I wish I could tell an episode and I wish I could remember what the hell episode it was because people have asked me for years and I still can't put my finger on it but it was early on it was it was in that 13 pickup and my role model on the character had been Woody Allen when I first the first bit of scripting I ever saw for the audition was just six pages of a scene I didn't have Larry or Jerry or anybody to tell me what the hell this thing was and even what context the scene was in the rest of the script so excuse me I read it and um I went well feels like a Woody Allen script so I went fine I'll do that I'll do Woody Allen so I went out and got glasses and I you know forget New York forget what eventually became New York I was I was doing the finest Woody Allen impression you were talking that I could that this is how I did the audition Jerry with the sputtering and the spitting and the whole thing and I and I and when I did it I went yeah that that's the end of that I'll never thank you thanks thanks for calling me in but that was the only thing I could think of and a week later I got a call from Larry who I'd never met and said we love it we love everything come out you'll read for the network do the New York just not quite Woody voice you know and so I backed off the Woody voice but he was still in my head the the Cinematic essential character of Wood Allen that we've come to know is what I was thinking George but somewhere in those first 13 episodes there was an episode where when we read at the table it struck me that the basic situation George was in was absolutely absurd that it just was a writer's bit of folly and Imagination so I went to Larry after the table read and I said Larry help me we both know this would not happen in real life but even if it did no one would react like this so you're going for something what are you going for so that I can figure out how to get there for you and he went I don't know what you're talking about this happened to me and this is exactly what I did I think I read that story I told you that I heard you'd say I think it was was it when you got fired or something no that was much later on I at that point I knew that lar because what happened shortly after that when I when I made that Discovery and I went oh my gosh I wonder if George is actually sort of an avatar of Larry and I started doing something first I started really observing Larry and Larry has a physical thing that he does that I used as my Lynch pin of understanding George and it seems like a small thing but if you've watched Larry perform you've absolutely seen it so whenever he experiences or hears something that he's not sure how to react to like was this a dig what is the intent of the person saying this to me Larry does a thing where he takes his tongue puts it at the bottom of his bottom teeth and he does this face he goes and in curb it leads to pretty pretty pretty good right you know but it's that sort of well you you did something there didn't you you you did something there and he's thinking about how he's going to respond to it and I went that's George that's George George is an oblivious to how everyone thinks of him he's well in on it and sometimes he thinks that too because Larry's thing for me is always the Larry I knew at any given moment could say I am the most worthless pathetic no talent in the world and why is no one not giving me my do I should be doing much better than I'm it was all in the same breath and I thought that's that's George that was a standup you I was a huge fan of Larry when he was doing standup yeah did you ever see him do his one night and it was it was a crazy night and um I've come to know his his act a little bit enough to know he did his first three standard jokes but by the end of the third joke when the the audience did not react he called us a dirty word and he walked off the stage always he was always angry and that for me was my favorite part of his of his act but also Kirby Your Enthusiasm you know came out of his HBO special but coming up with his act right exactly so he the the beauty of that show I felt is as crazy as it got it is always steeped in reality M and you know even if it's just a um um an exaggeration of something that really happened right were there any um uh Jason Alexander real life things that end up sein yes no no no in fact um I'm I'm going to quickly run my own Rolodex I don't think so um not that that would never happen I mean Festivus came one of our writers right that was foed on him in fact really no really we did a whole episode about it and see I don't sure these were all things that were that came from real but most of the storylines um at least in the first four seasons I think four maybe five Larry Larry was with us for the first seven and then he was gone for two and came back for the finale but many many many of the storylines came out of Larry's notebooks if you know Larry well enough he he has spiral notebooks and he writes down anything from an odd sounding name that he goes that's a great name I'm going to use that somewhere to things that happened to him or observations or thoughts and um many times he would say you want to know when I thought of this look this is a notebook from such and such year and here here it is right here the my masturbation contest you know and you go oh my God so he wasn't looking to me I

Channel: Howie Mandel Does Stuff Clips

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Id: XBE6B61UjYg

Length: 6min 3sec (363 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 01 2024