Seinfeld fans have long wondered if it was simply bad wedding invitations that killed off George Costanza’s fiance, Susan Ross, and thanks to a new interview with actor Jason Alexander, they finally have their answer.
Alexander appeared on the Howard Stern Show on Wednesday, according to Mashable , and eventually the conversation turned to the end of Seinfeld ‘s seventh season, which saw the demise of George’s long-regretted fiance. Though poorly chosen wedding invitations were to blame in the show’s universe, Alexander revealed that the character’s untimely end had much more to do with her comedic chemistry after Stern addressed rumors that Alexander couldn’t stand actress Heidi Swedberg.
“She’s a terrific girl…I couldn’t figure out how to play off of her,” Alexander said.
Jason Alexander says Chris Rock and others turned down his #Seinfeld role: http://t.co/AQWiasd2lQ pic.twitter.com/hKVfOFTpb9
— Entertainment Weekly (@EW) June 3, 2015
The actor went on to detail how he faced difficulty in striking the proper comedic tone with Swedberg, though his fellow Seinfeld castmates initially didn’t believe him, according to HitFix .
“I kept saying, ‘I’m going out of my mind you guys, you’re killing me. I can’t understand how to play off of this girl. I’m sure that the stuff is not working, it can’t be!’…I was the only actor doing scenes with her! And then finally — they didn’t know how the season was gonna end, was George gonna marry her? Was she gonna leave him? What was gonna happen?”
ICYMI, here’s @IJasonAlexander from today’s show on why #Seinfeld killed off Susan. #Howard http://t.co/lf6yp9WfaC pic.twitter.com/Ml79EQvUD9
— Stern Show (@sternshow) June 4, 2015
Once Alexander’s fellow Seinfeld actors had a chance to interact with Swedberg, however, they experienced a similar reaction. Yet instead of Alexander, it was apparently an offhanded comment by Seinfeld stalwart Julia Louis-Dreyfus that sealed the character’s fate.
“So finally they do an episode where Elaine and Jerry have a lot of material with her. They do the week…and they go, ‘you know what? It’s f*****g impossible. It’s impossible,’” Alexander recalled. “And Julia actually said, ‘I know, it’s just, don’t you wanna just kill her?’ And Larry went, ‘kebang!’”
Jason Alexander finally revealed why this ‘Seinfeld’ character was killed off. http://t.co/cmMvvNCuFQ pic.twitter.com/0m0jAEfjgB
— someecards (@someecards) June 3, 2015
When speaking about Swedberg, however, Alexander was quick to praise his former co-star, noting that he had no desire to impugn her.
“Every time I tell this story I cringe, because Heidi is the sweetest…it was just the way I come at stuff and the way she came at stuff is just…”
Last year, Alexander and Jerry Seinfeld made headlines when they filmed a Super Bowl commercial together at the diner which featured prominently in the show, as the Inquisitr previously reported. Seinfeld fans can currently see Jason Alexander in the highly successful Broadway comedy Fish In The Dark , however, as he takes on Larry David’s role during the play’s extension, which will last into mid-July.
[Image: NBC via Mashable ]