Tough to say whether Jason Alexander would be a bigger star in the movies if he'd not been cast as George Constanza on "Seinfeld." Alexander faces a situation that is almost entirely unique among sitcom fans trying to use that small screen stardom to translate into big screen stardom. The biggest hurdle facing such actors has traditionally been getting past the stereotype of the character that remains lurking in the mindset of fans.
While Alexander must deal with that aspect of the business, he must also battle against the fact that the real life person upon whom his "Seinfeld" character was based has since become a star in his own right. So the question really becomes: would Jason Alexander be a bigger star if he hadn 't played George Constanza at all or if he had gotten the chance to do so without Larry David going on to become a perennially paired aspect in the world of George Constanza? Who knows? What we do know is that Jason Alexander has a delightfully versatile resume when it comes to big screen comedy appearances.
It would seem that Jason Alexander could well have have enjoyed a career in comedy films playing nothing but variations on a certain type of smarmy, womanizing hater of the fairer sex. One of the first major impacts that Alexander had on the big screen was in the romantic comedy "Pretty Woman" in which he trademarked this despicable persona. He essentially would go on to play this type of character again in the Jack Black comedy "Shallow Hal." What is particularly interesting is that Jason Alexander is much easier bought as a womanizer when he is wearing a toupee to cover his bald head. George Constanza was a womanizer (surely one of the most difficult aspects of "Seinfeld" to swallow is how much action George actually got) but he was entirely different breed of animal. Constanza is a woman-fearing womanizer, not a woman-hating womanizer.
I prefer Jason Alexander's big screen comedy forays into the more experimental side of things. I know that "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle" is not exactly considered one of the greatest examples of TV-to-movie adaptations, but Jason Alexander actually makes a fairly decent Boris Badenov. Clearly, Alexander is the best thing about that movie, though just as clearly his inferior to Dave Thomas' earlier incarnation of the same character.
Alexander's greatest successes have come on the television in terms of breaking out from the crowd. George Constanza remains one of the all time great love-to-hate-him characters in television history and he brought new life to a TV version of "Bye Bye Birdie." Jason Alexander is clearly a man of tremendous talent and range and deserves a much greater big screen legacy than Hollywood seems content to provide.
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