Larry Thomas, "Seinfeld" "Postal" actor/Soup Nazi: Mr. Media Interview, Pt. 3
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ANDELMAN: Larry, actors on long-running TV series often fear, and rightly so, being forever labeled by a character. You achieved video immortality in just one episode. And I might add that most people think you’re actually on more than one episode, the finale aside. Is it a pro or a con that you did this?

THOMAS: I’d have to say it’s a pro for me, but the con part of it is not what you’d think. The pro part of it is that, number one, at that point in my career, after 15 or 18 years of trying to get acting work and not being able to interest anybody in the world of big-time, what we call big-time film, TV, after that, everyone wanted to see me. Mike Myers wanted me to do a cameo in the first Austin Powers movie. It was a little bit limiting what they wanted me to audition for, mostly guys with dialects and kind of crazy, funny guys.

But to be honest, I was suddenly auditioning for major television and built up quite a resume of guest spots on major TV shows, so I can’t assume that I would have gotten there anyway without that because it launched me like a shot in the arm from that one episode.







I guess the con part of it, and I still get this to this day, is that if you’re Jason or you’re Julia or Michael, then yes, your career is seriously affected by nine seasons of playing this character. The problem with them is that the public doesn’t want to accept them as any other character since they loved them so much as that character. But at least they had the benefit of nine years of really good pay to put money in the bank and to buy nice houses. They’re major stars, so if they want to command a TV movie or lend their name to a good script or a low-budget movie or whatever, they’ve got carte blanche in those areas. There’s a lot they have going for them even though you want to feel sorry for them that their careers are kind of halted.

But I don’t have that benefit. I only did one episode. The pay was $2,600, and of course, after taxes and commissions and what have you, I was $50 shy of paying my mortgage that month with that check. People think the residuals must be amazing, but what they don’t realize is residuals are salary-contingent, which means whoever was making the most money in that episode gets most of the residuals, and it wasn’t me. So my residuals, even for the DVD sales, has always been like not even gas money.

In the end, I guess the con part of it is people treat me like I spent my career on that one part sometimes. I’ve actually gotten nasty letters from fans. I get a lot of autograph requests, and I have to say to people sometimes, “I can’t afford the postage so send me a self-addressed stamped envelope, and I’ll sign one of my headshots and send it to you.” Also, I make part of my living, other than new acting work, selling a Soup Nazi photo that I sign that Castle Rock and I agreed that I could take this one picture to be mine, because they wouldn’t let me use anything that they owned that was taken during the show. So I had this one photo commissioned of me in character, they okayed it, and on my Web site and eBay and at autograph shows, I sell that photo that I sign and autograph soup ladles that people can really get a kick out of. And so, sometimes I will say to a fan that’s saying, “Hey, can I have a free picture of you as the Soup Nazi?” “Well, I sell those.” And sometimes I’ll get a really nasty letter back that says, “What did you do with your millions of dollars? I can’t believe you’re a millionaire, and you want…” Of course, I was never a millionaire. I got less for doing that episode than most of the people that are yelling at me get once a month for their job.






ANDELMAN: You did an episode of “Scrubs” that kind of plays into this. That was an accidental appearance. Can you tell us a little about that?

THOMAS: I met the “Scrubs” writers. I met Bill Lawrence in the hallway of where their writers’ conference room was, and he said, “Come in and meet the writers,” and he’s dragging me into the writers’ room and introduced me. And one of the writers said, “Say the soup thing!” and I just yelled, “No soup for you!” And all the writers were stopped in the tracks of whatever they were doing, and one of the guys said, “You don’t mind that?” And I said, “I say it twenty times a day on the lean days. Everyone wants to hear that, and I’m yelling it into the phone all the time and into people’s cell phones that stop me on the street.” They said, “Oh, wow.”

The next day, they called my manager and said, “We wrote a scene for Larry where J.D. is trying to get him to say, ‘No soup for you!’ and he won’t” and all that stuff. So I got to shoot this great scene on “Scrubs” with Tara Reid and Zach Braff, and it was just all based on that.

ANDELMAN: And Tara Reid thought this was just going to remake your whole career, right?

THOMAS: Yeah. If anyone’s ever seen the episode, basically, what happens is J.D. says, “Aren’t you the Soup Nazi from ‘Seinfeld’?” And I say, “No.” And he goes, “Come on, say the soup thing!” And I say, “No.” Originally, what we shot was different. Originally, he said, “Aren’t you the Soup Nazi from ‘Seinfeld’?” And I say, “No, I’m actually a classically-trained actor who has played many other roles, and it’s a little shallow to pigeonhole a guy in one TV guest spot he did over eight years ago, don’t ya think?” And then J.D. says, “Come on, say the soup thing! I go, “No.” Actually, there was this speech saying, “Yes, I’m the actor but whatever.” And all through that day after we shot that, like over lunch and whatever, Tara Reid kept saying to me, “I think this is gonna totally change your career. I think once this episode airs, and they see you saying that speech, they’re gonna realize that you are a better actor than that” and whatever.

But, unfortunately for me -- and this is the life of an actor -- somewhere in editing, they decided to change the meaning of the scene from, “No, I’m not only the Soup Nazi,” to “No, I’m not him.” And so they had to cut that speech in order to get that meaning which is, “Aren’t you the Soup Nazi from ‘Seinfeld’?” “No.” “Say the soup thing!” “No.” And then later in the scene, J.D. says, “Oh, he is so the Soup Nazi,” and he tricks me into saying it. And you have to live with that stuff. You just have to.

I remember when I went to the screening of Austin Powers, and Jay Roach, who directed it, came up to me. My scene wasn’t very long, but I had one really funny line that we both loved, which was when Robert Wagner and his X-ray eye patch had 17, and he wants to hit, and I’m the blackjack dealer. I say, “You have 17, sir.” And he’s already looked through the deck, and he sees that the next card is a four, but I don’t know that, so I say, “You have 17, sir,” and then I had this line where I said, “The book says not to.” And Jay and I both really liked that line that Mike Myers wrote, and I guess somewhere in editing, once again, Jay had to decide that the dealer shouldn’t have any ridiculous dialogue. But what’s funny about the scene is that this dealer is like a real solid Las Vegas dealer, and Austin Powers is absolutely ridiculous. So he came up to me before the screening, and he put his arm around me, and he took me into a corner, and he goes, “Listen man, I gotta warn ya about something.” And I said, “What?” And he goes, “I had to cut our favorite line because it made you funny, as well. I needed a straight man in that scene because Austin Powers is this ridiculous thing in reality, and I had to make you reality.” I said, “Oh, well, whatever.”







ANDELMAN: Now, it’s interesting that as sort of typecast as the Soup Nazi made you, your new movie coming out, Postal, which I think comes out in September, you play another character that people will equate to immediately. Can you tell us a little about that?

THOMAS: Another notorious character? I am hoping, really hoping, that this one doesn’t typecast me. I wouldn’t mind being remembered for my performance in Postal, but I don’t want to be typecast as this guy. I, actually, in Postal, I play Osama bin Laden. But I have to qualify that by saying Postal is an extreme political and social comedy. And my Osama in this is very different from what your image of Osama bin Laden is, which is part of the comedy of Postal. It flips on its ear every idea we have of what we see politically and socially in both mostly the United States and the world. So my Osama is comedically different from the scary Osama that we know. But yeah, it’s interesting that I didn’t go through one day of shooting in four weeks on this movie and not have somebody, whether it was a driver or my make-up person or the costumer or somebody, say to me, “Aren’t you worried that your life is going to be in danger when this movie gets released?” And it’s like, “Yeah, now that you mention it, yes I am.”

ANDELMAN: How many actors can say that they played a Nazi and the leader of Al Qaeda in one career?

THOMAS: I know -- and a Jewish actor.

ANDELMAN: Oh, I didn’t realize that. Are you Jewish?

THOMAS: Yeah. I’m a Brooklyn Jew from Borough Park, Brooklyn. And my mother laughed her head off. You mentioned something about “Arrested Development” earlier. Not only have I played a Nazi, Osama, not a real Nazi but a person called a Nazi, Osama, but in “Arrested Development,” I was a Saddam Hussein look-a-like in Iraq. So I’ve hit ‘em all, really. I don’t think there’s anything much left that you can hit being Jewish.


ANDELMAN: Now, who else is in Postal? There’s a lot of familiar faces in this movie.

THOMAS: It’s really gonna be character-driven. Dave Foley plays one of the lead characters in it. J.K. Simmons, who was J. Jonah Jameson in the Spider-Man movies, he’s in it. Verne Troyer, who was Mini-Me in the Austin Powers movies, he’s in it. David Huddleston, who has a really rich career from all the Mel Brooks movies like Blazing Saddles and many, many movies, he’s in it. Seymour Cassel has had a great career, he’s in it. A lot of well-known character faces you’ll see in Postal. The lead is played by an actor named Zack Ward who, although you might not recognize him as a grown-up, but Zack was in the movie A Christmas Story which is everybody’s favorite Christmas movie these days. He was the bully "Scut Farkus" who had yellow eyes, that was Zack when he was a kid, and he’s the young leading man in the movie.although what I hear from Zack, his career is taking off like a shotgun right now, so you might be seeing Zack in other things even before Postal, at this point.

ANDELMAN: I think he also did a couple episodes of “Deadwood.”

THOMAS: Yeah. I first met Zack about two years ago just sort of coincidentally. Actually, when I got cast in Postal and shot in Canada, when I went up there, waiting for me in my hotel room was a script, and in the script was a cast list, and I opened it up, and the first thing I see is “Dude,” Zack Ward. And I thought, oh, that’s funny. How odd is that that I know Zack. So I called him, and I just said, “Hey, man, we’re in the same movie!” And so yeah, things have been really cooking for him, which is great.

© 2007 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved.

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Labels: Al Qaeda, Austin Powers, Bill Lawrence, J.K. Simmons, Jay Roach, Jerry Seinfeld, Larry Thomas, Mike Myers, Osama Bin Laden, Postal, Saddam Hussein, Scrubs, Seinfeld, Soup Nazi, Zach Braff

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