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The reunion of “Seinfeld’s” principal actors –Jerry Seinfeld, Jason Alexander, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Michael Richards – on Larry David’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” might be the most anticipated reunion of all time.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Mr. Seinfeld recently explained why the old gang decided to reconvene.
“Doing it with Larry and on his show just seemed like the only possible way it would be fun,” he said. “We would never do the type of thing that these shows usually do. That wouldn’t be our style. But something like this — that was sillier and a little more offbeat — felt like it might be right for us.”
Or maybe it was the prospect of a big payday? (Not that anything’s wrong with it.) “I don’t think we really thought about that,” he said. “If we were about the money, we would have kept doing the show. We were about, ‘What would be the biggest treat for the audience?’”
The reunion took place on Stage 19 of the CBS Radford lot, where the old “Seinfeld” sets were taken out of storage and updated. What was that like?
“The best analogy is a snow globe,” Jerry said. “You’re walking into a miniature fake environment that has been recreated. As I told people about it, I could go back in your life 10 years and recast your friends, recreate where you live, everything in it exactly how it was, and now somebody with a headset points at you and you walk in now, and there it was, and you go, ‘Jesus Christ, this is my old life!’ We all felt like it was a very special experience. Just to go back in time in life is a fantasy.
“One of the coolest moments was to sit down again in that little foursome that we always sat in. Somebody suggested something about some camera shot—‘Can you switch?’ And we looked at the guy like, ‘Are you kidding?’ Because we would always sit in that exact configuration. There was no way we were going to change now.”
So was ending the old series in ’98 while still on top the right decision? Jerry stands by it.
“I think I was at that point with the show where I was in danger of killing the little thing of joy that’s inside you that makes you want to do anything that’s supposed to be fun,” he said. “The thing I like is that the show sustained over time. I’m more excited about the show now than I was then, because I see now that it’s taken on this other position in people’s minds. And I do think it relates to the way it ended, because it was kind of a portion control thing. That was in my mind. You give people a certain amount — different amounts create different feelings — and I thought we had given them the right amount.”