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Jason Alexander [1959-0] American
Rank: 103
Actor


Jay Scott Greenspan, known by his stage name, Jason Alexander, is an American actor, voice actor, comedian and director.
Alexander is best known for his prominent role as George Costanza in the television series, Seinfeld. 

Equality, Famous, Humor, Learning, Sad



QuoteTagsRank
Life and families and babies are all joyous gifts. But if we do not begin to truly account for our numbers, we will surely create an ecological crisis that will only lead to anguish and despair.
101
Usually, characters that are doing something nefarious have some extra layers to them. The general rule is bad people don't necessarily think they are bad.
102
Every poker player, like every fisherman, needs to have a story in a box, and most poker stories are completely uninteresting.
103
There is no community service in 'Seinfeld.' But rather than lauding that, I think it shows the insane banality of it.
104
I can get motivated seeing a kid at my son's school overcome a learning disability. Learning
105
I went into performing for the community. Being backstage with your company of fellows is the best part of working in live theater. That energy, that combined focus, the synergy - it's addictive.
106
Acting is not terribly important work, and I have always felt a bit of guilt about pursuing something that is so selfish. I love doing it, but it is never something that feels like it's going to change or save the world.
107
You need to find the size of performance that's appropriate to the material, appropriate to the shot, or appropriate to the scene.
108
Where are reliable journalism and reliable investigative voices going to come from? I love the days of old - the Walter Cronkites, the Dan Rathers.
109
I would work with any one of them again in a heartbeat because it was joyous and incredibly easy.
110
I'm always more motivated by the pain of a funny character than by what makes him funny.
111
The show is like an Edwardian play - emotional life gets stepped on for the sake of accepted manners, and that's terrific for actors to play in.
112
Things that make me laugh range from a wonderful stand-up like Jerry Seinfeld, Louis C.K. and Chris Rock to my son Gabe, who does great improv work. I also look backwards to the great comedic actors like Jackie Gleason, Paul Lynde and Phil Silvers.
113
Television, in particular, doesn't look for talent; it looks for personas. You have a great persona? You can be a TV star.
114
Many people don't know our famous 'soup kitchen' episode on Seinfeld was inspired by an actual soup restaurant off 8th Avenue in New York. Famous
115
We made a deal that was acceptable to us. We got paid very handsomely for our final season.
116
The thing about For Better or Worse is the only thing that made me an okay director for that is that I have a sense of humor, and it was supposed to be funny. Humor
117
I still don't know much about directing a movie.
118
I kept being asked by corporations to do corporate gigs. And I said, 'I don't have anything. I'm not a stand-up. You want me to come sing show tunes for you? I don't think so.'
119
I know what it's like to be in the closet! I know what it's like to be bullied and attacked because someone or some group thought I was different or below them... so, I'm coming out of the closet as an ally of equality for everyone; as an ally to hope. Equality
120
I think with challenge comes a little more fun.
121
Comedy works best when people recognise themselves.
122
I'm a singer and performer in a hybrid show that's standup, music and audience participation.
123
Even when I was an actor in training, one criticism my teachers had was that I should think about directing instead of acting, because the best actors see the material they're working on through blinders. They can't see anything but their role. I could never really do that.
124
One of the downsides of being a poker pro is that people see exactly how you play.
125
Poker is just a hobby I'm passionate about. It's not supposed to bring glory.
126
I am hard-core middle class.
201
I found that looking at the Israeli/Palestinian conflict from an outside vantage point was actually quite distancing. The history of the conflict, the personalities, the violence, the distrust, and the seeming lack of viable solutions made meaningful involvement feel impossible. What changed that, for me, was changing the vantage point.
202
The greatest part of the job was... that was for nine years it was a pleasure to go to work.
203
Well, let's put in this way, I grew up in West New York, New Jersey.
204
But one sets of grandparents lived on Davidson Avenue in the Bronx and one lived in Manhattan and I had an aunt and uncle in Queens, so in my heart I was a New Yorker.
205
You know, because of the lack of budget, we had to find neighborhoods where time had stopped - kind of stuck in the '50s. And no place had that better than Staten Island.
206
But I didn't know much about directing a movie.
207
I was heavy as a kid. I mean, I kind of got it together for a while there in my 20s and early 30s.
208
I had gone to the doctor. The doctor said, 'You're healthy as a horse. You've got two weight problems - two health problems because of your weight. Please do something.'
209
Jerry Seinfeld has an interesting theory. He goes, '20 pounds up or down, and you lose your funny.'
210
Isn't it time you came out and told the world what you believe?
211
I've gotten a lot of compliments on the 'Criminal Minds' guy. I guess it's because the look of that character is so different from what people expect of me.
212
I was a shy and insecure kid and didn't know quite where I fit.
213
I'm still bald, I just wear a toupee.
214
I guess the Reagan era is defined as the 'I want it all for me, and screw everybody else' era.
215
Jerry Seinfeld made a puddle, I stepped in it, and wonderful things happened.
216
The necessity for 'professionals' in the entertainment industry is being constantly challenged.
217
I cannot tell people who are struggling that I come first. I just cannot.
218
If I could really move my career much more into predominantly directing, I would jump at that.
219
Is it my end-all and be-all to become a standup comic? No.
220
I love smart comedy.
221
There are always things that I'd love to do. As an actor, none of them are specific; all I'm looking for are things that are good quality, that are challenging for me to work on, and even better if I get to work with people that I respect and am excited to work with.
222
I have no illusions about having another 'Seinfeld' in my life.
223
I find when somebody says to me, 'I'm going to motivate you,' more often than not, they're not going to get me.
224
'Broadway Bound' is near and dear to my heart, as it was one of my happiest times on Broadway.
225
Most of the musical film work that I have done has been in this realm of what I think of as real family entertainment.
226
I have actually lost a couple of roles - film roles - because a director or producer thought I looked too much like George Costanza, and I could not get out of that box.
301
What you find with singers, no matter where they're from, if they have any kind of an accent, the accent tends to disappear when they sing.
302
Directors get to fire on many more cylinders than an actor.
303
The pilot of 'Seinfeld' was made and dropped. 'Seinfeld' was not supposed to go to series.
304
Do people absolutely need the arts to get by day-to-day? You can make that claim, but they also really need a lot of things before that.
305
When CNN does a story and then says, 'Tweet us what you think' - why? Why does it matter what I think? Why should my thoughts be broadcast on a national news program? It's enough for me to just sit and listen and learn.
306
I think that I have very few personal gifts to bring to real politics.
307
I do think that the days of gathering around a television set that functions merely as a television set, to receive a live broadcast of some networked programming, those days are probably numbered.
308
One of the reasons I love acting is because I'm so interested in other people's lives, and I often incorporate things I hear or observe into my work. I've become a bit of a 'person addict,' and so I like brushing up against lots of different characters.
309
Comedy lives on in the web and TV, but nobody's pressing comedy albums anymore.
310
What is it about Iowa? I'm the shortest guy in the state.
311
I'm actually one of the more reluctant celebrities you will ever meet.
312
I started balding at age 17 and after first being sad, I really embraced it. Sad
313
I'm not a director to make an action or horror film. That's not for me.
314
I was the teenage kid growing up in New Jersey watching the Tony Awards and thinking, 'Oh, maybe if I'm lucky I'll make it to Broadway by the time I'm 40!'
315
The world of the stage and the performance on the stage usually does not tend to translate very well - it doesn't tend to hold very well - once cameras are on it; it's not like it's terrible or embarrassing or bad anything, but, I, as an actor, would perform a role differently for an audience than I would for just cameras.
316
In New York, the theater is a destination point. In Los Angeles, no matter how provocative, how successful, how star-studded the theater event may be, it is, at best, a second-class citizen.
317
Theater is very much the world I'd like to get back to, particularly in New York, both as an actor and director.
318
It's a question of finding the right thing, if I'm going to be an actor... if I have to get up eight times a week for a number of months, I want to be excited and challenged from the day I start to the day I leave.
319
I have always wanted to play Sweeney in 'Sweeney Todd.'
320
I met the real George Steinbrenner on only one occasion when he actually came and played himself on an episode of 'Seinfeld.' He seemed to really enjoy himself. I did not get to know him, but the fact that he allowed himself and his beloved team to be satirized on our show is an indication to me of his true character.
321
The downside of being a celebrity is that people kind of know about you, and you really don't need them to know about you - you need them to know about your work.
322
Most stand-up comics relish performing 'in one' - solo. They like the autonomy.
323
Boston was a great town to go to college in. Maybe that's why there's so many colleges there. I love the town, and I loved Boston University.
324
Really, the golden egg of doing a series is that you cross that very stupid bridge that says 'Name Actors Only' in casting sessions. All of a sudden, you become a name actor; it gives you marquee value. That's all that a series does.
325
Do you want to have a career that goes beyond, you know, 11 minutes in a 22-minute television show every week? Some people don't. That's fine.
326
Actors go, 'I just want to act.' And I say to them, 'You know, stop for a second and think about what charges you up the most. Do you want to be on the stage, do you want to be in film, do you want to be a comic actor? Do you just want to make it for the money and capitalize on your look and do commercials and soaps?'
401
The Middle East is a very difficult stage to play upon. Without doubt, it is a good drama. And on occasion, there are situations so unimaginable, if not ludicrous, as to make them almost comic. But the cast is constantly changing, the audience is often disengaged, and it seems at times that no one is actually running the show.
402
We see and hear about Israelis and Palestinians only when they are defined by the global media as 'occupiers,' 'terrorists,' and 'victims.' But we forget that they are fathers and mothers and sons and daughters and neighbors and doctors and shop-owners and farmers and students.
403

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