There was a moment when Jason Alexander realized that his character on George Costanza is one of the funniest TV characters ever. He's the perfect archetype of an insecure man who has a preposterous amount of confidence at all the wrong times. Deceitful, petty, and self-hating, if you knew George in real life, you might go the way of his many girlfriends and dump him after only a few days of getting to know him.

Fortunately for us, all the things that make him unpleasant in real life make him absolutely hysterical and mesmerizing on television. Anyone who has watched Curb Your Enthusiasm will be aware of the connection between Seinfeld creator Larry David and George Costanza. In season 2, episode 1, "The Car Salesman", Alexander waxes angrily about being typecast as George Costanza, a "schmuck", as he calls it. David, of course, takes that personally, leading to a hilarious scene. It turns out, Alexander was not aware of the connection between character and creator.

Jason Alexander Was Initially Playing George Costanza As A Woody Allen Caricature

Larry David Told Alexander To Drop The New Yorker Impression After His Audition

When Jason Alexander first started playing George Costanza, he was doing a Woody Allen impersonation, based on the actor/director's work in movies like Annie Hall and Manhattan (via HowieMandelDoesStuffClips). The script he was given during his audition did not have a lot of direction, but he thought it seemed a lot like a Woody Allen character, so he did an Allen impression with the over-emphasized New Yorker accent. It's not a far stretch; Allen's characters were the quintessential "neurotic Jewish" character for years before George Costanza.

Alexander was sure he wasn't going to get the part, but a week later, David called and offered him the job. His only note was to drop the voice. However, he didn't mention anything about the Woody Allen character, so Alexander decided he would keep that ethos in George and continued to play him that way for the first few episodes. Seinfeld changed a good amount over the seasons from those first few episodes, and that goes for George, too, who didn't evolve into the George we all know until a little later.

Jason Alexander Realized Early On That George Was An Avatar For Larry David On Seinfeld

David Was Writing About Events That Had Happened To Him

Jason Alexander said, "Somewhere in those first 13 episodes there was an episode where, when we read it at the table, it struck me that the basic situation George was in was absolutely absurd, that it was just a writer's bit of folly and imagination." He went to Larry David after the table read and asked for the writer's help to try and figure out how to get to this strange place with his character. David responded, according to Alexander, "I don't know what you're talking about. This happened to me, and this is exactly what I did."

It mirrors the conversation in the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode, and it's possible that moment was based on David and Alexander's conversation in that first season of Seinfeld. It was after that that Alexander started to wonder if "...George is actually sort of an avatar of Larry." There are so many absurd situations in both Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm that feel like no real person would ever find themselves involved in something like it, but if this story suggests anything, it's that Larry David's life may be more ridiculous than anyone ever thought.

Jason Alexander Began To Observe Larry David To Better Understand George's Character

Alexander Picked Up On A Key David Expression To Inform The Character

After Jason Alexander realized who he was playing, he went method, and began following Larry David around, observing him for the role. Alexander said, "I started doing something. I started really observing Larry, and Larry has a physical thing that he does, that I used as my lynchpin of understanding George." That "thing", as Alexander describes it, is a famous facial expression that David makes in Curb Your Enthusiasm and that George makes in Seinfeld.

The expression is the one where Larry puts his tongue at the bottom of his teeth and considers an insult or bad opinion someone just offered. It's an expression done countless times in both shows, and it's Larry (or George) considering how they are going to react to what was just said. Often it's a bad reaction. It offers an insight into both characters, showing that they are not ignorant of people's opinions of them; in fact, they may even agree. Jason Alexander discovering this about George Costanza helped make Seinfeld what it is today.