Jerry Seinfeld says Jason Alexander memorized the iconic beached whale-golf ball monologue in just a half hour. During a recent interview, the comedian revealed that he and Larry David wrote the 'Seinfeld' scene the night before filming it. Then, Alexander only had minutes to memorize the script.
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00:00 "The sea was angry that day, my friends.
00:05 Like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli."
00:08 Jerry Seinfeld says Jason Alexander memorized the iconic beached whale golf ball monologue
00:13 in just a half hour.
00:15 During an interview this week, the comedian revealed that he and Larry David wrote the
00:18 Seinfeld scene the night before filming it.
00:20 Then Alexander only had minutes to memorize the script.
00:23 "I don't know the schedule that week, but let's say we're shooting it on Wednesday.
00:27 It's Tuesday.
00:29 We don't have the golf ball goes into the blowhole of the whale."
00:34 He continued, "We don't have it.
00:35 It was never in the script."
00:37 The season 5 episode, titled "The Marine Biologist," saw Alexander's character, George Costanza,
00:41 deliver a long monologue about the time he tried to impress a woman by pretending to
00:45 be a marine biologist, and ended up being called upon to save a beached whale.
00:49 "As I watched him struggling, I realized that something was obstructing its breathing.
00:54 From where I was standing, I could see directly into the eye of the great fish."
00:57 "Mammal."
00:58 He eventually reveals that Kramer's golf ball got stuck in the whale's blowhole.
01:03 "I knew something was there.
01:06 So I reached my hand in, felt around, and pulled out the obstruction."
01:13 Seinfeld recalled this about crafting the iconic scene.
01:16 "It was the night before we shot the scene with Jason in the coffee shop.
01:21 I said to Larry, 'Hey, what if what puts the whale in distress is Kramer's golf ball?'"
01:29 Prior to that moment, Seinfeld said they hadn't connected Kramer hitting golf balls on the
01:32 beach to George walking on the beach with a girl and encountering a beached whale.
01:36 "We saw no connection the night before.
01:41 We write that speech the night before, 2 o'clock in the morning."
01:46 After the late night lightbulb of inspiration, Seinfeld said it was Alexander who became
01:50 the true hero the next day on set.
01:52 The comedian revealed what he said to Alexander when he handed him the two-and-a-half-page
01:56 speech.
01:57 "We gotta shoot this in a half hour.
01:59 Memorize it.
02:00 He goes, 'No problem.'
02:01 That's TV.
02:02 That's TV.
02:03 No preciousness."
02:04 Seinfeld said his co-star's performance made for an even better performance from everyone
02:11 that day, including himself.
02:12 He said, "When Jason is doing the speech, you think I'm reacting to the story.
02:17 I'm reacting, I can't believe he's getting the speech word perfect.
02:20 That is what I'm thinking."
02:21 For more on this story, head to THR.com.
02:24 This is The Hollywood Reporter News.
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