Jason Alexander
I know what it's like to be in the closet! I know what it's like to be bullied and attacked because someone or some group thought I was different or below them... so, I'm coming out of the closet as an ally of equality for everyone; as an ally to hope.Collection: Equality
The thing about For Better or Worse is the only thing that made me an okay director for that is that I have a sense of humor, and it was supposed to be funny.Collection: Humor
I'm actually one of the more reluctant celebrities you will ever meet.
I'm not a director to make an action or horror film. That's not for me.
I was the teenage kid growing up in New Jersey watching the Tony Awards and thinking, 'Oh, maybe if I'm lucky I'll make it to Broadway by the time I'm 40!'
The world of the stage and the performance on the stage usually does not tend to translate very well - it doesn't tend to hold very well - once cameras are on it; it's not like it's terrible or embarrassing or bad anything, but, I, as an actor, would perform a role differently for an audience than I would for just cameras.
In New York, the theater is a destination point. In Los Angeles, no matter how provocative, how successful, how star-studded the theater event may be, it is, at best, a second-class citizen.
Theater is very much the world I'd like to get back to, particularly in New York, both as an actor and director.
It's a question of finding the right thing, if I'm going to be an actor... if I have to get up eight times a week for a number of months, I want to be excited and challenged from the day I start to the day I leave.
I have always wanted to play Sweeney in 'Sweeney Todd.'
I met the real George Steinbrenner on only one occasion when he actually came and played himself on an episode of 'Seinfeld.' He seemed to really enjoy himself. I did not get to know him, but the fact that he allowed himself and his beloved team to be satirized on our show is an indication to me of his true character.
The downside of being a celebrity is that people kind of know about you, and you really don't need them to know about you - you need them to know about your work.
Most stand-up comics relish performing 'in one' - solo. They like the autonomy.
Boston was a great town to go to college in. Maybe that's why there's so many colleges there. I love the town, and I loved Boston University.
Acting is not terribly important work, and I have always felt a bit of guilt about pursuing something that is so selfish. I love doing it, but it is never something that feels like it's going to change or save the world.
I am hard-core middle class.
You need to find the size of performance that's appropriate to the material, appropriate to the shot, or appropriate to the scene.
Really, the golden egg of doing a series is that you cross that very stupid bridge that says 'Name Actors Only' in casting sessions. All of a sudden, you become a name actor; it gives you marquee value. That's all that a series does.
Do you want to have a career that goes beyond, you know, 11 minutes in a 22-minute television show every week? Some people don't. That's fine.
Actors go, 'I just want to act.' And I say to them, 'You know, stop for a second and think about what charges you up the most. Do you want to be on the stage, do you want to be in film, do you want to be a comic actor? Do you just want to make it for the money and capitalize on your look and do commercials and soaps?'
Many people don't know our famous 'soup kitchen' episode on Seinfeld was inspired by an actual soup restaurant off 8th Avenue in New York.
The Middle East is a very difficult stage to play upon. Without doubt, it is a good drama. And on occasion, there are situations so unimaginable, if not ludicrous, as to make them almost comic. But the cast is constantly changing, the audience is often disengaged, and it seems at times that no one is actually running the show.
We see and hear about Israelis and Palestinians only when they are defined by the global media as 'occupiers,' 'terrorists,' and 'victims.' But we forget that they are fathers and mothers and sons and daughters and neighbors and doctors and shop-owners and farmers and students.
Television, in particular, doesn't look for talent; it looks for personas. You have a great persona? You can be a TV star.
I started balding at age 17 and after first being sad, I really embraced it.
Jerry Seinfeld made a puddle, I stepped in it, and wonderful things happened.
I found that looking at the Israeli/Palestinian conflict from an outside vantage point was actually quite distancing. The history of the conflict, the personalities, the violence, the distrust, and the seeming lack of viable solutions made meaningful involvement feel impossible. What changed that, for me, was changing the vantage point.
I went into performing for the community. Being backstage with your company of fellows is the best part of working in live theater. That energy, that combined focus, the synergy - it's addictive.
We made a deal that was acceptable to us. We got paid very handsomely for our final season.
The greatest part of the job was... that was for nine years it was a pleasure to go to work.
I would work with any one of them again in a heartbeat because it was joyous and incredibly easy.
I'm always more motivated by the pain of a funny character than by what makes him funny.
Well, let's put in this way, I grew up in West New York, New Jersey.
But one sets of grandparents lived on Davidson Avenue in the Bronx and one lived in Manhattan and I had an aunt and uncle in Queens, so in my heart I was a New Yorker.
You know, because of the lack of budget, we had to find neighborhoods where time had stopped - kind of stuck in the '50s. And no place had that better than Staten Island.
But I didn't know much about directing a movie.
I still don't know much about directing a movie.
The show is like an Edwardian play - emotional life gets stepped on for the sake of accepted manners, and that's terrific for actors to play in.
I was heavy as a kid. I mean, I kind of got it together for a while there in my 20s and early 30s.
I had gone to the doctor. The doctor said, 'You're healthy as a horse. You've got two weight problems - two health problems because of your weight. Please do something.'
Jerry Seinfeld has an interesting theory. He goes, '20 pounds up or down, and you lose your funny.'
I kept being asked by corporations to do corporate gigs. And I said, 'I don't have anything. I'm not a stand-up. You want me to come sing show tunes for you? I don't think so.'
Isn't it time you came out and told the world what you believe?
Usually, characters that are doing something nefarious have some extra layers to them. The general rule is bad people don't necessarily think they are bad.
I think with challenge comes a little more fun.
I've gotten a lot of compliments on the 'Criminal Minds' guy. I guess it's because the look of that character is so different from what people expect of me.
I was a shy and insecure kid and didn't know quite where I fit.
Comedy works best when people recognise themselves.
I'm still bald, I just wear a toupee.
I guess the Reagan era is defined as the 'I want it all for me, and screw everybody else' era.