Jason Alexander makes the effort of being unreasonable painfully visible: the prepared excuse, the wounded pause, the anger at being challenged. We rate his George Costanza in Seinfeld highly because that effort never stops being funny.
Fi1m perspective
In Seinfeld (1989), Jason Alexander makes George Costanza look as though he has rehearsed his excuse and neglected to prepare for a reply. The small pause when somebody objects is where the performance becomes funniest. We laughed at his wounded response, because George treats the slightest resistance as an injustice. Alexander lets us see how hard this man is working to sound reasonable. It is precise, sustained comic acting, and much of our enthusiasm for the programme rests on it.
His stage work offers a useful way of looking at that precision. He began on Broadway with Merrily We Roll Along (1981), followed by The Rink (1984) and Broadway Bound (1986). His background in singing and dancing makes the physical control of George’s discomfort worth noticing. Alexander puts that control into showing a man whose attempts to defend himself only expose him further. There is nothing effortless about George, and Alexander wisely makes no attempt to hide the strain.
Working with co-star and co-creator Jerry Seinfeld and co-creator and writer Larry David, Alexander gives the ensemble someone whose excuses invite an objection. George is partly based on David, but knowing that explains less than watching Alexander keep embarrassment so close to aggression. The performance allows the character to be thoroughly unpleasant without asking us to stop finding him funny. The opening episodes are tentative; the precision of the acting does not make the programme fully formed from the start. Its plotting matters as much as any individual performance.
Beyond George, the screen work includes Philip Stuckey in Pretty Woman (1990) and the voice of Hugo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996). The later television leads Bob Patterson (2001) and Listen Up (2004–05) were short-lived. The stage and voice work deserve to be remembered when George threatens to become the entire account of his acting.
Alexander also directed The Good Samaritan (1992), an episode of Seinfeld, and later worked as a director in television and on stage. Our strongest recommendation is still for the actor trying to explain himself as George. Give the tentative early episodes some patience; he makes wounded indignation worth staying for.
Biography
Jason Alexander is an American actor, comedian and director. Born Jay Scott Greenspan on 23 September 1959 in Newark, New Jersey, he trained at Boston University before leaving to pursue acting in New York. He made his Broadway debut in 1981 and won the Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical in 1989 for Jerome Robbins' Broadway.
Alexander is best known for playing George Costanza in the NBC sitcom Seinfeld from 1989 to 1998. He also directed three episodes of the series, including "The Good Samaritan." His other notable screen credits include Philip Stuckey in Pretty Woman (1990) and voice roles in animated features such as The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996). He has received an Emmy Award, a Tony Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award, along with multiple Golden Globe nominations.
