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October 18, 2022 11 mins

Jason Alexander zooms in to talk new comedy movie and more!

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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Your on with Mario Littleez tell a Mario Lopez, join
me out on Zoom eight times. Emmy nominame I Man
Jason Alexander, Welcome to the show, Jason. Have you been?
I have been better than most, not as good as some.
Always enjoy catching up with you. Um So now out
on Comedy Central. The movie Out of Office For those

(00:22):
not familiar, what's it about? Uh? It's it's an interesting
little project. It is a ensemble comedy about how everybody
started working over remote from from their homes and the
various complications that ensue from that, both romantically and practically. Uh.
It starts this wonderful actress who everybody probably knows her

(00:46):
face if they don't know her name, Milana Baintrub, who
is literally the A T and T girl from commercials
right and and she plays my daughter rather I played
her dad. Shariot's areas her mom and we had a
lot time. It's a goofy ensemble comedy and people seem
to enjoy it. So happy. That's up such a funny,

(01:07):
obviously topical subject right there in Chario, Terry, that's great.
Just worked with her too. She played my agent and
she's so funny. Um, you're always so busy, love seeing
that you're popping up everywhere. Also in the works, you've
got the Electric State, which is directed by the Russo brothers.
What can you tell us about that? Um, it's a
good question. I'm trying to remember contractually what I am

(01:29):
or to tell you about that. It is a very popular,
uh book. I guess, I guess it would be called
a young adult book or a young reader's book. UM
about y a a sci fi fantasy about a world
in which um, very much like Terminator robots. It's sort

(01:50):
of taken over and then humans developed a way to
uh create these drones, and they fought the robots and
they pushed the robots box. But now they kind of
live their lives through these drones, except for one young
lady played by Millie Bobby Brown who goes off on
a mission that I probably can't talk about. But it's

(02:12):
a wonderful cast Chris Pratt and Millie Bobby Brown, Stanley
Tucci others. Yeah, it's just it's a big, huge action
sci fi fantasy adventure. It's it's fantastic, very cool. You
always uh picked such cool projects, but I always, um,
we were just talking prior to uh, jumping on here
that I used to see in New York often. But

(02:34):
and I love that your theater guy with a song
and dance background. Uh, like I'd like myself. Do you
do you miss Do you miss that often? Do you?
I know most of your time you spend here in
l A. But is there times you'd like to go
back and maybe dip your tongue? I actually never excuse me,
I've never really left the theater. What I left was
the first level of my life, New York theater. It's

(02:55):
been over the last thirty years as I've raised my
family and and how had this career out here, I
haven't been able to do as much of that as
I would like. But I have a couple of projects
for New York for Broadway where I am in the
director's chair rather than on the stage. Cool, and I've
been directing um plays across the country and and some

(03:16):
my might. I ran a theater company out here in
l A for a better part of five years, so
I've never left it. It is my first and greatest
love that I just uh, you know, I don't get
as much of it as I love to hear that
though that's awesome. UM, real quick, I wanted to talk
to you about the Sinfel reunion on Curb a few
years back. Is it true that Larry uh needed you
to coach him to do some scenes? I think there's

(03:39):
I think if you go on YouTube you can actually
see that. Yeah. So the convention was that there was
gonna be a Seinfeld reunion, I guess for HBO and
and I can't remember what the trump up stupid thing
was where you know, t V Jason Alexander got miffed
and walked off the project. Larry was going to step

(04:01):
in and play the part of George, and they actually
had they had written some Seinfeld reunion scenes and then
Larry was going to play George and one of those
scenes and you know, and I think the intent was
he wasn't going to be very good at it. But
on the day they were actually filming those scenes, I
was not called to the set because I'm not in them.

(04:24):
And I got a fairly frantic call from Larry that
morning saying you have to come down here because I
don't know how to do you And I said, may
I remind you, sir, I was doing. You Just do
what you think is right, and he just he actually
asked me if I would come down and I would
stand off camera and do my version of George doing

(04:45):
that line, and then Larry would try and imitate me
imitating him. It was it was a very meta situation.
But that is totally inception and I love it. Thank
you for sharing that. Oh my god, that's that's that's
so great right there. How is streaming affected the legacy
of Seinfeld? Are you finding that younger fans are discovering
it now and or the biggest fans, I'm sure are

(05:07):
still the ones who saw it in its original time slot. Yeah,
you know, Mario, it's it's it's really hard to say.
I and I would imagine all of us connected with
the show. I've always been a little amazed at the
um the waves of of new fans and the longevity

(05:27):
of the show. I really thought it was very much
a product of its time, a sort of chronicle of
the nineties. It wouldn't have much relevance beyond that, but
it has always been for reasons I don't understand. A
pretty popular college show. College didn't seem to find it. Um.
That was true before it started streaming, and true all

(05:48):
through the DVDs, and it has a huge international audience
that keeps finding it. I don't know why. You know,
in the same way that not that I'm equating us,
but in the same way that the Lucille Ball Show
reruns still have a life even though it's eight years.
You know, somehow the antics of these four ridiculous people

(06:10):
in the nineties have some value. And what people seem
to say is they just find it funny. You know,
it's not it doesn't matter if it's relevant or not relevant.
They just find it funny. And I think the reason
it keeps on truck and is people really want to
laugh these days, you know, and there's there's not a
lot that is delivering it consistently. Apparently we do, and

(06:33):
and so they use us as as comfort food to
to keep laughing when things are not so. Yeah, I
agree with that sentiment. And I think the Uh the
Lucy shows a fair comparison to Art. Art's timeless and
definitely participated in that. UM. I wanted to talk about
you encouraging everyone to get a flu shot, UM, because
it tell us what you're doing with the Not Today

(06:54):
Flu campaign. It's a really fun little campaign. It's uh
Santa Flu and the American Nurses Association got together and
they wanted to create a strong message for this season's
you know, flu season, because we have had relatively minor
flu seasons because we've all been isolating an indoors and
wearing masks. But this particular flu season, as the world

(07:16):
has come back, pretends to be a pretty difficult one.
And the truth of the campaign is there's lots of
things we cannot do to avoid the mishaps in our
life and the things that would deter us from enjoying
our lives folly. But the flu vaccine is actually a
pretty doable one. You can get it almost anywhere. Certainly
your healthcare providers can offer it to you in many
many cases. It's a free vaccination and it really does

(07:40):
both prevent the flu and flu complications. But even if
you do get the flu, it keeps you much healthier.
It's it's a much easier time. So it's a simple
thing to do. We know everyone is sick and tired
of hearing about vaccinations, vaccinations, vaccinations. The flu vaccination has
been around certainly my lifetime. I've been getting it every
year of the last years, um And so if you

(08:03):
If you want to find out more, you can go
to not Today flu dot com. It will give you
all the facts and figures. It will even help you
find the healthcare provider near you where you will get
your flu vaccine. We'll make sure we put all the
info up to at on Mario dot com. And I
was just a Walgreens yesterday. They were offering the flu
Walgreens right there, flu shot. They weren't offering the flu

(08:24):
part may they weren't offering the actually yeah maye w
is at this point they might, but the People magazine
and the flu. And You've got a couple of sons, right, Jason,
I do are they? Are they in the entertainment space
at all? What are they in? Two? They are? My
older son, GiB has been an actor and a writer

(08:45):
and director and was very very busy here in the
l a improv and skep scene. Slowly coming back, but
he's about to be a new dad, so he's got
plenty of things going on. Uh. And my younger son, Noah,
is a voice actor. There's a lot of voice Oh
that's cool, did you. I'm just curious to being a
father myself and knowing this business and how tough it is.
Did you try to not necessarily discourage them, but expose

(09:08):
them to other things, hoping they'd maybe lean towards it,
you know, because I'm not that thing where the kids
are kind of asking and knowing how it is, And
how did you gauge that? So? Um, the boys were
certainly exposed to every possible kind of thing in the world.
Anytime they expressed even a mild curiosity about anything. Uh,
you know, my my wife being super mom, had classes

(09:31):
and opportunities the next day. In Gabriel's case, was very
clear from the time he was an infant was that
there was a natural performer in him. He used to
watch things on television and get up and try and
imitate them, so it was clear that there was an
attraction there. And he is just so alive and so
full and happy when he's performing and when he's on stage.

(09:52):
Noah was the surprise. Noah really didn't want anything to
do with any of this and was a who in
college was, you know, taking linguistics and philosophy. And I
used to joke that he would be thoughtful and articulate
about why he's unemployed the rest of the time, but
somewhere in the final year of college. He has this

(10:13):
kind of wonderful, re rich, resonant voice, and he loves
gaming and he loves animation. And he just called one
day and said, do you think I could like even
get into this as a voice actor? And my wife
and I went, you want to acting? And no, no, no,
I just wanna be a voice actor. Um, And so
I just asked my commercial agent if if they would

(10:34):
meet and just tell him what it would take to
be a voice actor. And my agent was really taken
with him and signed him. And he's been making this,
you know, this ever building career in voice ever since.
That's awesome. It's in their blood, so I guess it. Yeah,
you just kind of gotta exposed and support whatever they
end up finding. So, you know what. That is My
tip to parents, if they're asking their kids come to

(10:56):
them and say, I have a dream. No matter what
you think of that in here's your job. Cheer lead, cheerlead,
and support because the last the world will teach them
what they need to know. But the last thing you
ever want your child or anyone you love to say,
is my my parents didn't support my dream. You just
don't want that. That's excellent advice and a great note

(11:18):
to wrap up on. Thank you so much for your
time and listen to sir h always a pleasure of
speaking with you. Go to On with Maria dot com
to learn all about the Not Today flu campaign, and
Jason thinks again for taking the time to check in.
Thank you brother. You look good. It looks like you're vaccinated.
You guys, I'm all good to go. Let's see it
you too, Spot with Mario a little past
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Mario Lopez

Mario Lopez

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