Seinfeld’s Jason Alexander has revealed why the cast chose to end the sitcom after nine seasons.
The iconic comedy by Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David ran for nine years on NBC before it came to an unexpected end in 1998.
Appearing on the At Home with the Creative Coalition podcast, Alexander – who played George Costanza in the hit show – divulged that their decision to stop filming arose out of a fear that after nine seasons the series would become predictable.
“We took ourselves off the air. We called it quits,” he said. “We all thought that the show could continue to be funny because the writers were always really good and they would find these amazing guest people to come in all the time, so there was a constant flow of a new sense of humour. And we thought funny is not the obstacle here.”
The Pretty Woman actor continued: “The obstacle was that after nine seasons, the audience could more or less anticipate how any of these characters would react in any given situation. There was nothing new we could do to these characters and still have it be Seinfeld.
“Since the show had career-wise done everything it was going to do for us and it had taken care of us financially extremely well, the mutual thought was why don’t we tuck it in before the audience says this kid’s been up too long.”
The 61-year-old also opened up about the real-life inspiration behind his legendary character, stating: “The four pages read to me like a Woody Allen script… That’s where the glasses came from and where the really thick New York accent came from as an idea.”
He added: “I got put on tape in New York and I went, ‘I’ll never see this. You’re not going to get a job this way.’ And about a week later I got a call from Larry and Jerry, and it all clicked.”
