Wayne Knight Says ‘Seinfeld’ Was Like Doing Broadway on Opening Night: ‘Don’t F*** It Up’
Jason Alexander was bummed out on a recent episode of his Really No Really podcast. He’d recently discovered that Armin Shimerman, an actor who had guest-starred on the Seinfeld episode “The Caddy,” had a terrible experience with the cast. “I hated them. Hated them,” Shimerman reportedly said during a Q&A at a fan convention. “They were non-communicative, ugly, non-responsive. What’s the word? Insular.”
Maybe Alexander could have chalked it up as a “somebody having a bad day” complaint if not for hearing a similar comment from another guest who just happened to be a former New York Met and National League MVP. “Keith Hernandez said I in particular was — I think the word was standoffish,” said Alexander.
Was the Seinfeld cast really that rude to guests? For confirmation, Alexander turned to his podcast guest Wayne Knight, the comic actor who frequently played Newman on the sitcom. (Despite more than 40 appearances as Newman on Seinfeld, Knight was never made a regular cast member.) “I’m not looking for a compliment here,” said Alexander, looking for a compliment. “I thought we were kind of a welcoming set. Were we cold?”
Don't Miss
Knight’s response neither confirmed nor denied Alexander’s worst fears. “You were professional,” said Knight. “And you were the top show on television and it was like, ‘This is opening night on Broadway. Don’t fuck it up.’”
Whoa. Alexander looked concerned. “That’s the vibe that you got?”
“The vibe is that everybody was thrilled to be there and they understood the nature of this beast,” Knight said. “Jerry was very welcoming and friendly. Larry was scary as hell because he was too relaxed-seeming. How could somebody so laconic and loose be so scary?”
Knight, a frequent guest star on sitcoms like 3rd Rock from the Sun, Hot in Cleveland and Curb Your Enthusiasm, enjoyed his Seinfeld experience more than some of the others. “I enjoyed being on the show because every time you started a scene, you knew it delivered,” he said. “You just had to not be in the way of it. Find the joke, hit the joke, the joke is there.”
Just like on every sitcom, right? Not according to Knight. “The number of shows I’ve been on where you go on an expedition to find the joke? This was not that.”
Alexander still seemed worried that he hadn’t done his job as host. As a guest actor himself, he knows what it feels like to be left out. “I have been on enough other shows to know where the warm ones are. Like working on (The Marvelous Mrs.) Maisel and working on Young Sheldon, I went, ‘Oh, I feel like I’ve been here for a long time. I feel like I’m part of the family,’” he said. “Other shows, you’re walking into a very dysfunctional family.”
For Knight, the friendliest set wasn’t Seinfeld but 3rd Rock From the Sun. How come? “John Lithgow’s father ran a Shakespeare theater and so (Lithgow) knew how to be the captain of a ship,” Knight said. “It was ingrained in him how to take care of people, to be gracious, to make sure that everybody was together.”
Too bad Keith Hernandez never got the chance to do Lithgow’s show.
