Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright/actor Tracy Letts recently joined Rich Eisen in-studio, where he shared stories about the making of the famous Festivus dinner episode of “Seinfeld.”
In the Seinfeld episode, “The Strike” (Season 9, Episode 10), Letts played one of the OTB operators that meets Elaine and then later joined the gang at the Costanza Festivus celebration.
Letts remembers struggling to maintain composure during the filming, which occurred over Thanksgiving. As Letts recalled, “I broke. Everybody is broke. We all broke a lot. Yeah. And we didn’t have a studio audience. It was the Thanksgiving week, and so they didn’t even bring in a studio audience for the taping. So there’s no audience there. We were just cracking each other up around the table.”
Letts also recalled how Jerry Stiller was the funniest person he’d ever met and seen work in his life. “He’s just hysterically funny. And he’d just open his mouth, and people would just start cracking up. He’s just so damn hilarious.”
Proudly, he also said how Jerry Stiller told him, “You’re very funny,” which has remained as an honor for Letts.
Tracy Letts also pointed out that Jerry Stiller’s speech at the dining room table was much longer, but they “had to cut it down because we just couldn’t get through it.”
It’s another Festivus miracle!
