Jason Alexander joked that his aging appearance prevents him from being “mobbed” by fans while strolling in New York.
“I’ve aged badly, that’s why people don’t bother me,” he exclusively told Pvnew at the Broadway opening of “The Cottage” earlier this week.
That’s not to say that Alexander, who memorably played George Constanza on “Seinfeld” from 1989 to 1998, doesn’t get spotted.
“I get recognized and people are very sweet,” he explained. “And it’s generally a salute and a wave and a ‘Hey, Jason!’ kind of thing.
“I am very fortunate that people like my work and they seem to want to show their appreciation but I can still live my life. Not everybody can do that but I can.”
The “Shallow Hal” star, 63, shared that he feels fortunate to have starred on the sitcom in light of the SAG-AFTRA strike, which includes the actors’ union fighting for fairer residual rates from streaming.
“We were extremely lucky,” he told us. “I guess that period of production was in the best way, a kind of a golden age for television and for television actors … Everything, it seems like a decade after we were done, the whole model changed and I don’t understand.”
Alexander has now returned to his theatrical roots with “The Cottage” — a comedy that he directed — starring “Will & Grace” alum Eric McCormack, Alex Moffat, Laura Bell Bundy and Lilli Cooper.
In 1981, he made his Broadway debut in Stephen Sondheim’s “Merrily We Roll Along” and eight years later, he won a Tony for Best Actor in a Musical for his role in “Jerome Robbins’ Broadway.”
Though Alexander has acted in several critically acclaimed plays, the “Pretty Woman” star was immediately struck when reading the script for “The Cottage” and knew he had to be part of the comedy.
“I was looking for pieces to direct and I don’t, for some reason, I’m not prideful about this, but I’m not an easy laugh apparently,” he told Pvnew. “And I was sitting and reading this play and laughing out loud.”
“It’s a comedy send-up of the old Noel Cowardesque kind of shows and the films of the ’30s and ’40s,” he explained. “It takes place in a countryside cottage outside of England … in 1923.
“It is a place that is used often for all kinds of little Infidelities and they all pile up on the occasion of this play and it becomes a little bit madcap. But inside of all that, there’s also a wonderful sort of feminist story of a woman coming into her own ability to determine her own path.”
Celebs who attended the opening night of “The Cottage” included McCormack’s “Will & Grace” co-star Sean Hayes, Steven Weber, Bernadette Peters and Lea DeLaria.
