Seinfeld’s new film serves up tasty satire
Comic stars in Pop-tarts tale Unfrosted
NEW YORK • Nearly three decades after his Seinfeld, Jerry Seinfeld has finally made his first film. Seinfeld directed, co-wrote and stars in Unfrosted, a star-studded comedy about the invention of the Poptart premièring May 3 on Netflix.
The film, which co-stars Melissa Mccarthy, Jim Gaffigan, Hugh Grant and others, is an outlandish Mad Men-inspired ’60s-set satire in which Kellogg’s and Post Cereal are engaged in a cutthroat race to “upend America’s breakfast table.”
Unfrosted returns Seinfeld to one of his abiding passions. “When they invented the Pop-tart, the back of my head blew right off,” he says.
Q Is it true that your moments on the Curb Your Enthusiasm finale were improvised with Larry David?
A The idea occurred right in that moment. I said, “Hey, let’s talk about the finale right now.” We had been talking about it all day because it was their finale. We were just talking about series finales all day. And I was saying that Mad Men was my favourite and I thought The Sopranos one was great, and obviously ours was what it was.
Q You’re happy with it or not?
A Well, I think what we said in that scene. We thought, “Yeah, that would have been better.” (Laughs) It’s very hard to remember. The emotional state I was in after nine years was a little ragged. Maybe we weren’t thinking quite clearly. The idea of doing that on his show — the math of it is really amazing. To do that, two people have to have two successful long-running sitcoms and they have to be playing themselves, with a 25-year separation. When I was driving home that night on the 10 in L.A., my head was exploding because of the math of what just happened — to set something up in ’98 and pay it off in ’23. For a joke person like me, I felt like I landed on the moon.
Q Unfrosted began with an old standup bit of yours. Is it surprising to you that you’ve made a movie about it?
A It was all (Seinfeld writer) Spike Feresten’s idea. I did not want to do it. I did not think it would work . ... And (Seinfeld writer) Andy Robin came up with the idea that it’s The Right Stuff. And I went, “Oh, that’s funny.”
Q You have a line about “splitting the atom of breakfast,” so this is like a snacksize Oppenheimer.
A It’s a fun game if anyone wants to play — how many movies we stole from. Obviously, The Godfather, obviously The Right Stuff.
Q You once suggested you only say you love Pop-tarts to make the joke work.
A I probably just said that to make that point. But I do love Pop-tarts. I had one yesterday. We were doing a social media piece with Jimmy Fallon and Meghan Trainor. I took a bite and I went, “This is fantastic.” What I like about it is the man-made quality of it. I love great objects that fit in your hand in a nice way. A pack of cigarettes is one of the greatest things you can put in your hand ... Dice feel great. I like a nice spoon. I like things.
Q Were you aware of the recent trend of movies based on products?
A Yeah, but we were started long before that. I was a little disappointed I suddenly became part of a trend, but there was nothing we could do about it.
Q You just turned 70. Is that meaningful to you?
A No.
Q You’ve said you want to do standup into your 80s and beyond.
A To the very end ... The only hard part of my life is the other things. People do ask me about slowing down and I go, “The work part of my life is not standup. It’s all the other things.” Standup is an incredible, pure experience. Surfing is the great regret of my life that I never really got good at that. I did it for two weeks one-time many years ago. But if you were a surfer, you would never stop doing it. That’s what standup is for me. Feeling that energy, that natural life-force energy under you and around you, I never get tired of that.
Q Are you thinking about another standup special?
A No ... I’m not sure of it as a comedy form for me right now. I would love to think of something else, if I even wanted to do it — which I don’t right now. Like Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, the subtext of that is: I’m really sick of talk shows on TV. That’s why I did that. And let me show you why. We don’t want to see them sitting on a couch anymore. The people who are doing it aren’t having any fun doing it. That was my anti-talk show. So I would want to do an anti-standup special if I did one. I envy, sometimes, these little Italian artisans who don’t really care if anybody knows who they are or what they do. And standup can be like that. Any writing work is very lonely work. Standup, in a way, is kind of a private, lonely world ... My way, if I had my choice, is that I would like to do this work very quietly and privately.
Q It’s interesting you’d say that as someone who had one of the biggest television shows ever. Maybe you have had your fill of it.
A That’s possible. But it never felt like me. Larry and I, when we first started to do the show, thought: This will be a really fun, little boutique thing that will just get our people that like this kind of quirky, offbeat thing, and that would be cool. What it became was never on our radar. Then, suddenly, you’re a big-wave surfer. I think it was tougher on Larry than for me. Because you feel the pressure. I never minded the pressure.