Welcome back to Cheddars news wrap,
there are a lot of things out of your control that can ruin your day,
but getting sick from the flu shouldn't be one of them.
But don't take it from me, take it from actor and comedian. Jason alexander,
wouldn't it be great to get immunized against life's little disasters?
Mhm
The pigeon had malice,
a guardian angel against things that make your date stink
expiration dates people. But production like this doesn't have to be supernatural
stop
because just like me,
a flu shot can help prevent nasty complications from the flu like pneumonia,
heart attack and stroke.
Earlier today I spoke with alexander on why he got involved
with the Not Today flu campaign and so much more.
Take a listen.
I am always pleased to do anything public service and
particularly public service of something that I believe in.
So I have been taking the flu vaccine for at least 20 years.
If not more, I would swear by it.
It has uh it has kept me safe, it has kept me working has kept me going.
So santa fe and the american nurses association came with
this campaign which is actually a lot of fun.
It's got you know a lot of, a lot of these kinds of things can be a little serious.
This one is actually kind of fun
talking about how you can get a flu vaccine and it kind of protects you from the
little travails of life in our case the flu which can lead to more than travails.
It's not only a nasty thing to get,
but it can lead to hospitalizations that can lead
to complications like stroke and heart attack and,
and, and on occasion death.
I mean, flu does kill people.
So it's a serious disease, It's going to be potentially a serious flu season.
And they told me I could be
a strong advocate to help people protect themselves.
So we have teamed up and not today flu dot com.
We'll tell you everything you need to know about where to
get your vaccine and you can talk to your healthcare.
Professional life turns out so, well,
you know, I thought I knew a lot of fun facts about Jason, alexander,
what I didn't know is your mother is in the medical field herself.
So what was it like growing up as a son of a nurse and you're a fantastic actor,
but I'm assuming faking sick wasn't the easiest thing,
It did not work. I, I uh you know, I would have gone without an award for that.
My mom was a nurse,
she was a nurse educator and I tried certainly all my elementary school
life to just get out of school once on a sick day.
I think I had all my major childhood diseases in the summer.
But I would, I would get up,
you know in the middle of the night and pour a can of soup in the,
in the toilet bowl and go, mom, I threw up, I
put the thermometer on the radiator and try and get the mercury up.
Nothing worked with my mother. She just, she saw right through it.
So I would, she would always say
take two aspirin. That was her big solution to anything.
Take two aspirin, go to school
and if you don't feel well when you get there, tell the nurse and she'll call me but,
but you know then you're there, you've already committed.
So I don't think actually Hannah that I missed a single
school day to, to any kind of sickness. My mom was on top of it.
She caught me, so on top of all your accolades,
we can say you pretty much had perfect attendance in school.
I do, I think I've got that nailed.
Okay, let's talk about one of your most recent projects out of office.
What was it like working with the cast and what can
viewers and your fans like me expect from this film.
You know, it's a lot of fun. It's already uh it started airing on Comedy Central.
It's essentially a comedy about the fact that we've all
been working but we haven't been together in An office.
It's been the vagaries of this teleconference and kind of stuff.
Um I and Cheri Oteri played the parents of the young woman who's starring in it.
Malena in trouble who most people know from the A T and T commercials.
She is an absolute delight.
Uh it was, it was a ton of fun. We were not there long.
I worked on it for a few days playing her dad.
Uh it was great fun,
but it's a wonderful cast with her and ken young and uh Leslie
is in and I'm trying to think of this just J Farrell,
there's Leslie jones, it's a great group and um I've seen trailers for it.
I've never sat down and seen the whole thing,
but it was very funny to make and it should be
something that a lot of us relate to about the what
it's like to have to deal with being in an office
when you're not in the office and that's an incredible cast.
I can't wait to watch. I hope it's okay.
I do want to ask you about Seinfeld, I'll be quick.
You play George Costanza, of course, iconic lee for a decade.
It's been said that a lot of the show's best moments were completely improvised.
Do you mind sharing a moment with us?
I don't know who said that because they would be so wrong.
Um there, there really was virtually no improvisation when we shot the show.
We had some leeway in rehearsals, we would rehearse like a play.
So we'd rehearse for three or four days and
then shoot the show in front of an audience,
but the show is always came very well written, I promise you,
I was not funnier than the writers um every now
and then something would come up in the rehearsal and
a line would occur to somebody and we we try
it and it would get an approval or get chucked.
But on, on actual shoot days,
people have been very flattering when they say the show felt like
it was being improvised because it meant that you couldn't see the,
the acting behind the acting,
but it really was not an improvised show at all, curb on the other hand,
curb your enthusiasm is entirely improvised.
So people may be confusing it with that,
but Seinfeld was beautifully scripted and I promise you,
we said every word they wrote.
Those are two of my favorite shows and thank you
because I was going to ask you about curb next.
So you beat me to it.
So what's next for Jason alexander, what kind of projects are you working on?
There's a whole bunch of stuff coming up.
I've been doing a lot of theater directing and I've got a
couple of projects that are trying to make their way to broadway.
They, they're looking good. They just need a theater.
There's a big theater crunch here in new york.
In the meantime,
I'm running off to go do a part in
a Russo Brothers film for netflix called the Electric State
with chris pratt and Millie bobby Brown and I'm looking
forward to a couple other projects just forming somewhere,
you know, that endless development phase, a bunch in that phase.
Uh and then I've been doing a lot of teaching, I've been teaching actors for 30 years,
but I started to really step it up during the pandemic and I've loved it,
and so I'm continuing to do that and I got some hobbies and I got some stuff,
there's always stuff and then there's like the surprises, you know,
I cannot tell you how many times on a monday I go,
oh I think I'm gonna be free for a while and the phone rings on Wednesday,
it's something I never anticipated.
So it's that's the nature of our business,
thanks to actor and comedian, Jason alexander, Such a pleasure.