SEINFELD
A new book shares untold stories from behind the scenes of the hit sitcom.
A NEW BOOK REVEALS UNTOLD STORIES FROM BEHIND THE SCENES OF ONE OF TV’S MOST POPULAR SITCOMS EVER
Twenty-seven years after Seinfeld ’s debut, you’d think there was nothing left to learn about the much-studied show. Well, no soup for you! “The biggest surprise was that Lorne Michaels inspired Elaine’s dancing,” Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, author of the new book Seinfeldia: How a Show About Nothing Changed Everything, tells Closer. Spike Feresten, who wrote 1996’s episode “The Little Kicks,” reveals in the book that he based Elaine’s awkward moves on his former Saturday Night Live boss, and he even gave Julia Louis-Dreyfus “a little dance lesson during production, schooling her in the singular Michaels method.”
That’s just one of many scoops in Armstrong’s book — and one of the “90 to 100 percent” (in the author’s estimation) of story lines on Jerry Seinfeld’s smash ’90s sitcom that were inspired by actual events. Co-creator Larry David told the writers, “Use stuff from your real life, then have the characters do what you wish you had done.” The result was a show ostensibly about nothing, but really about the little things in life that irk us all. Concludes Armstrong, “Seinfeld takes everyday irritations and blows them up to epic proportions — and that’s why we like it.”
The cast members endured some irritations of their own. “It was like any workplace, but with higher stakes,” says Armstrong. “They had tons of respect for each other, but Michael Richards was a little eccentric.” That may be an understatement. The actor who played wacky neighbor Cosmo Kramer would often stand in a corner, muttering his lines to himself, then throw himself into his physical comedy scenes with such reckless abandon that he scared his co-stars. “He hit Julia by accident once,” Armstrong says. “Michael was wound pretty tight, and when he got into a zone, he didn’t want to come out of it.”
Meanwhile, Jason Alexander — who won the role of Jerry’s BFF George Costanza over competitors like Nathan Lane and Danny DeVito — was initially concerned about his screen time. “He was worried he’d be relegated to one scene per episode where Jerry complained about his ex-girlfriend Elaine,” Armstrong says. “But it turned out OK.”
In fact, Seinfeld became such a huge hit that tabloids followed the stars. According to Armstrong, “Jerry got the most attention” when he dated teen Shoshanna Lonstein, and Michael “was a little bummed he didn’t get more.” He’d get a lot after using the N-word at a comedy club in 2006. “It’s a tough thing to shake,” Armstrong says. “But it hasn’t stopped people from watching the show.”
And analyzing its every detail. “That’s what Seinfeld showed us,” Armstrong concludes. “That TV can be smart and geeky and worth obsessing over.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that! — Bruce Fretts
POWER OF
FOUR “It was chemistry
and magic,” Armstrong says of the dynamic among Michael, Jason, Julia and Jerry. “They are so great together — it doesn’t get
any better.”