Jason Alexander

Jason Alexander, as George Costanza on NBC’s “Seinfeld,” won six Emmy and four Golden Globe nominations, an American Television Award and two American Comedy Awards for “Best Supporting Actor in a Television Series.” The Screen Actors Guild knighted him “Best Actor in a Comedy Series.”

His Broadway debut was in “Merrily We Roll Along” (1981). Alexander wrote the narrative book for the revue “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway” and played 14 different characters at every performance, winning the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Tony Award. Other theater roles include starring in the acclaimed L.A. production of “The Producers.”

Film credits include Hachiko: A Dog’s Story, Pretty Woman, Mosquito Coast, Jacob’s Ladder, Coneheads, North, Blankman, Dunston Checks In, Love, Valor, Compassion, and Shallow Hal. He has directed the features For Better or Worse and Just Looking. He is currently directing and appearing in a number of television shows, and serving as the artistic director for Reprise Theatre Company.

MB: How long have you been performing?

JA: I started as a very ambitious six-year-old who performed magic shows. I was very serious about magic and thought it was going to be my life's work. But by the time I was a teenager, I realized that my passion was greater than my ability. Around the time I was thirteen, I made the quantum leap of looking at theater as a gigantic illusion, and one that I wanted to be a part of. So at age thirteen, I began studying voice and dance, and I performed in everything I possibly could. I was very lucky. About three years later, I stumbled into a modest but professional career. So I’ve been a professional for about thirty-two years.

MB: What were the circumstances when you started performing?

JA: As an amateur, I was part of the school shows and the teen theater troupe in my town. We would do musicals and contemporary comedies. Sometimes I was the lead, other times I was in a supporting role. I always felt very at home and very, very comfortable on stage. I craved it. It was where I felt most alive and most potent. It remained that way as I began to do commercials, which is primarily what I did professionally until I was twenty.

MB: Tell me about the first time you were anxious or nervous.

JA: When I was twenty years old, I made my Broadway debut. I had always dreamed of Broadway as the pinnacle of my career. I thought it was something I wouldn’t see for many, many years. But suddenly I was there. And not only there, but working for absolute legends. My debut was in a Stephen Sondheim musical directed by Harold Prince—two gods of the theater. I had a terrific role and one that was very much in my wheelhouse. So I was stunned when we prepared for our first public performance. I’d always had butterflies before [performing], but not anything worse.

The show began with all of us on stage as the curtain rose. And as the curtain rose on that first night, I had a flash of intense vertigo, like I was going to pass out and couldn’t find my center. It sent me into a cold-sweat panic. Luckily, I held on, managed to perform, and warmed into the performance. But the next night as I stood on the stage waiting for the curtain to rise, I was in a panic that the experience might repeat itself. I worked myself up so much that when the curtain rose, the vertigo was even worse than the first night. Every night became a nightmare at the opening of the show. Once I got past the first scene, I would settle down and be all right. But since this had never happened to me before, it was very unsettling.

The show didn’t run [long] and the experience didn’t last. The next professional show I was cast in performed in a small off-Broadway club, and I didn’t experience anything other than the normal butterflies. But, throughout my career and up until about ten years ago, I would occasionally get panic and vertigo attacks while performing, and it took a lot of dealing with them to be able to continue.

MB: As you continued performing, how did your nervousness change?

JA: One of the worst periods for me was when I was on Broadway doing a Neil Simon play called “Broadway Bound.” For a number of reasons, this show caused some of my very worst panic attacks. It may have been because it was the first time I was hired on Broadway as a non-musical actor, and that held significance for me.

The set was a two-storey construction, and a lot of my action was on the upper storey. I have a healthy fear of heights, so that added to my anxiety. But the worst thing of all was that my character had a moment in the play where he went to sleep on stage for about fifteen minutes. Lying on that bed, on that second story, on that Broadway stage—that combination literally scared me to death.

Night after night, I would get panic attacks. I just wanted to run. I wanted to do anything I could to get off the stage. But I was afraid to move because I didn’t want to pull the audience’s attention away from the action.

If I had been able to actually fall asleep, it might have been okay. But I was responsible for hearing the end cue and starting the next scene, so I had to stay acutely aware. It was a nightmare.

That went on for months. I would anticipate the horror every day. I saw therapists. If I had any inclination toward drugs, I’m sure I would have used them, but that just wasn’t an option for me. Anyway, I never truly overcame those attacks on that show. I tried many, many things over the course of the run. I would try to do math problems or mental puzzles in my head. I would just count and see how long I had to count before my cue came up. I would sing in my head. I tried relaxation exercises to try to let go of the anxiety in my body. I tried self-reason—I told myself that I had gotten through this so many times that it was certain I would get through it again. And I eventually tried getting mad at myself. I would yell at myself in my head, daring myself to give in to the panic and vertigo. Telling myself to faint or run and just ruin the show and my career. It all worked for awhile, and then I would have to try something new. As the show ran, the severity of the attacks lessened, but they never truly went away until long after.