Jason Alexander hit The Howard Stern Show yesterday to share all sorts of goodies from Seinfeld. In addition to revealing Chris Rock could have played George Costanza, he also spoke about the show's decision to kill off Susan. He said actress Heidi Swedberg was "fucking impossible" to work with, despite being a pleasant person. "I couldn’t figure out how to play off of her," Alexander said. "Her instincts for doing a scene, where the comedy was, and mine were always misfiring."
Now that the story has spread Alexander feels "awful" for telling it in a way that that reflects badly on anyone but himself—a real-life comic tragedy that proves Alexander truly is George Costanza. He apologized to Swedberg in a letter posted to Twitter and said the problems resulted from his own insecurity and immaturity.
Oh dear God, leave Heidi alone Read: http://t.co/14Q5akRj38
— jason alexander (@IJasonAlexander) June 4, 2015Alexander wrote:
...in telling this story, it sounds like we are putting a heavy burden on Heidi. I, personally, am not. Heidi would always ask if there was anything in the scenes she could do or if I had any thoughts. She was generous and gracious and I am so mad at myself for retelling this story in any way that would diminish her. If I had had more maturity or more security in my own work, I surely would have taken her query and possibly tried to adjust the scenes with her. She surely offered. But, I didn't have that maturity or security. And, Larry and Jerry would probably have killed me as it was all playing exactly as they wanted. Clearly Susan and George were coming off just the way they wanted.
So, to all the press that is now running wild with this 15 year old story, please don't pervert it. No one told Heidi to do anything different - and she surely would have, if asked. And no one that I am aware of, including myself, didn't like her. And now with distance, I can look at those episodes and see that there was a fun relationship there between George and Susan. It works perfectly. I simply couldn't see it or find it at the time.
To Heidi, I personally apologize. You are a sweetheart. I actually launched into this on Stern to defend you. But this is why I'm not a lawyer. Now everybody, calm down and just enjoy the reruns and think, "why did he think this wasn't working? This is great."
Unlike the gaffe, the apology is more graceful than Costanza could have made it. I hate to admit there might be a difference between the actor and character after all.
