Janeane Garofalo believes a chance encounter with Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David may have helped her land a role on “Seinfeld.”
The comedy veteran played Jerry’s girlfriend and doppelgänger Jeannie Steinman in two episodes of “Seinfeld” in 1996, during Seasons 7 and 8. Garofalo’s Jeannie saves Jerry from being hit by a car in the episode “The Invitations.” The pair gets engaged, but “The Foundation” sees them split. In a 2015 interview with GQ, Garofalo recalled visiting a friend while filming “The Larry Sanders Show” nearby, only to unexpectedly run into Seinfeld and David.
“I had a break, and I went to visit my friend Jill Soloway, who was working in an office that was in the same building as Jerry and Larry’s office,” Garofalo recalled. “I’m walking down the hall to find Jill, I pass an office door that’s open, and inside are Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David having a conversation. I just went, ‘Hello!’ You know, in that way where you think you know people, but you don’t. I knew Jerry just a little, little bit through other comics, and had never met Larry David. Then I kept walking. Within 24 hours, my agent said I had an offer to play that part.”
Janeane Garofalo thought she was ‘horrible’ on Seinfeld
Playing Jeannie wasn’t an easy task for Janeane Garofalo, and she opened up about the challenge she faced during her two-episode stint on “Seinfeld.”
“I think I was horrible! I’m the only comic who can’t do a Seinfeld impression!” Garofalo said. “Jeannie, my character, was supposed to be so much like Jerry that he hated her … like when I sing along with the radio and people tell me to shut up, the same cadence as Jerry. I was supposed to sound like him. But I dialed it down. I felt like that would have been a little bit too much. And also, I was embarrassed because I felt I couldn’t do it … So while I was thrilled to be there, I felt I was failing miserably the whole time.”
Garofalo’s brief run as Jeannie clearly left an impression on “Seinfeld” fans. “Loved Garofalo in this role! She nailed it, and I love watching that episode again and again,” one user wrote in a Reddit thread praising the character.
This story originally appeared on TVLine
