Seinfeld George Would Kill to Go Up Those Stairs Again
It was classic Seinfeld nighttime sense of humor—but darker than virtually. George, Kramer, Jerry, and Elaine wait in the hospital for news about George's fiancee, Susan.
"I'thou sorry," the doctor says to George. "She'due south gone."
The camera cuts to George and there's a long interruption. "What's that?" he asks every bit the laugh runway cuts in.
"She expired." "Are you sure?" Louder laughs. "Yes, of course!" "So, she's dead?" More laughs. "Yeah." "Huh." "Let me ask you. Had she been exposed to any kind of cheap gum?" Uproarious chuckles.
Susan, of class, died from licking the cheap envelopes George picked for their wedding ceremony invitations. It was the terminal fleck of cruelty (funny equally it may accept been) inflicted on the character. In Season 4, when Susan and George begin dating, Kramer vomits on her and and then burns her family's cabin downwardly. George gets her fired, which leads to her breaking upwards with him. And so they go back together, but George immediately feels trapped so he pretends to pick his nose so she'll break upward with him. When Susan is finally in a happy relationship with a woman, the woman leaves Susan to date Kramer, who is just in it for the gratuitous tennis lessons. In Season Seven, they're reunited when George proposes, but he spends the entire flavour scheming ways to get out of the relationship until her decease in the flavor finale. Through information technology all, Kramer could never exist bothered to think Susan's proper noun—he called her Lily fifty-fifty when he found out she'd died.
"Poor Lily."
For 28 episodes over five years, the writers tortured poor Susan, which fabricated her the consummate partner for sorry sack George. But in the existent world, the cast didn't like the extra much more than their fictional counterparts. In fact, it was Julia Louis-Dreyfus who suggested killing off the character after finding actress Heidi Swedberg hard to work with, co-ordinate to interviews with Alexander over the years. Simply Swedberg has been left out of the conversation completely. She hasn't spoken publicly about Seinfeld since she was written off the testify, and she's since left Hollywood backside completely. I spent days trying to rail Swedberg downwardly to hear her side of the story, because it's been three decades since the premiere of Seinfeld—and it's time the show'due south near tragic graphic symbol gets a much-deserved second look.
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Swedberg's stint on Seinfeld was function of a two-decade interim career. Before the show virtually nothing, she had guest spots on Murder She Wrote and Grace Under Burn down and after she had small roles on Gilmore Girls and Wizards of Waverly Place.
In 1992, she was cast for 1 of her longest-running roles: George Constanza's girlfriend Susan Ross. Shortly later on she joined the NBC show, a Los Angeles Times reporter caught the new extra in one of her outset rehearsals. In the scene, George and Susan are supposed to be in a car and she is scolding him for driving too fast.
From the LATimes:
Turning away from the script, [Swedberg] says, "It's like I'm talking to a dog."
"You lot are," director Tom Cherones blurts. "You're talking to a bad dog."
"Welcome to the world of 'Seinfeld,' " Alexander responds.
Years later on the evidence ended its run in 1998, Alexander told Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, author of the book Seinfeldia, that he found Swedberg's comic instincts to be "the complete opposite" of his own. "I e'er felt like I was punching into Jell-O," he said.
The thespian reiterated the point in a 2015 interview on the Howard Stern Bear witness saying, "I couldn't effigy out how to play off of her. Her instincts for doing a scene, where the comedy was, and mine were always misfiring. And she would do something, and I would go, 'OK, I see what she's going to do—I'm going to adjust to her.' And I'd adjust, and then information technology would alter."
Before the evidence's seventh season, Seinfeld co-creator Larry David called Alexander to tell him his character was getting married—Alexander was thrilled about the story arc until he institute out who his fiancee would be. When he was told it was Susan, his response was, "Corking! Who'due south playing George? Because it was such a disaster."
David assured Alexander that Susan was the perfect match for George—and, in many means, she was. George only decides to ally Susan later on making a deal with Jerry that they'd both become married. Afterwards Jerry backs out of the deal, George is withal left betrothed to Susan. Newly engaged, nearly every word out of Susan's mouth irks George. Looking dorsum now, knowing Alexander's frustrations at having to act beyond from Swedberg, his resentment seems to ooze into the performance.
In one scene, Susan is only cuddling with George while they scout Mad Nigh Y'all and George's face is locked into an expression of disgust. It'southward awkward—and hilarious. Hands irritable George was always the funniest when he was upset.
"What Heidi brought to the character is you could do the nigh horrible things to her and the audition was still on your side," David said, according to Alexander. "You've driven her to lesbianism. Yous burned her father's shack down. You've practically shit on her, and nobody feels bad for her. They're all on your side. She'due south the greatest foil for you."
In Seinfeldia, Swedberg is described every bit an "unassuming professional who caused neither trouble nor spectacle." She saw her office every bit the directly woman to the quirky cast of characters. She would exercise her scenes, then head off to a corner to read a book until she was chosen upon again.
David and the show's stars would have dinner together after wrapping episodes, and Alexander spent the flavor complaining nearly his scenes with Swedberg. In the Stern interview, he says none of them were sympathetic because nigh of his scenes with her were on-on-1. Just subsequently a series of episodes in which Jerry Seinfeld and Louis-Dreyfus shared scenes with Swedberg, they agreed with Alexander.
"They go, 'You know what? It's fucking incommunicable. It's impossible,'" Alexander said on the Howard Stern Show. "And Julia actually said, 'Don't you want to just impale her?' And Larry went, 'Ka-bang!'"
And so goes the story of how Susan came to be killed off by licking the tainted envelopes. NBC executive Warren Littlefield called it, "the boldest comedy move I've ever seen" in the book Superlative of the Rock: Inside the Ascent and Fall of Must-Run into Boob tube. After the characters' cold response to Susan's death aired on his network, Littlefield's children's pediatrician wouldn't speak to him.
After telling the story of Susan'due south death to Stern, Alexander tweeted a note saying, "[Swedberg] was generous and gracious, and I am so mad at myself for retelling this story in any way that would diminish her. If I had had more maturity or more security in my own piece of work, I surely would have taken her query and possibly tried to suit the scenes with her. She surely offered. But, I didn't have that maturity or security."
Now that we know why Swedberg was written off the bear witness—and have the do good of 30 years hindsight—it's fourth dimension to look back at how her performance was ideal for this show. And how the character of Susan brought out the worst—and funniest—in George. It'south fourth dimension to give her the credit she deserves.
George was admittedly pathetic while Susan was smart and ambitious, an accomplished professional when they met. She is an NBC executive when George and Jerry pitch their show, and they quietly beginning dating. But, instead of respecting Susan'south career, George kisses her in a coming together resulting in her getting fired. This leads to Susan breaking upward with him—yeah, she wants to end the human relationship and then she ends it. When George goes back to her—and proposes!—she gives him another chance. She is patient and committed to their human relationship while George selfishly schemes to leave of it instead of addressing their problems or simply breaking up with her like an adult. Imagine beingness the humiliation of being Susan—planning your nuptials while your fiance endlessly whines most you behind your back.
Susan comes from a wealthy family, so she comes off a bit haughty and serious, and Swedberg pulls it off perfectly. Her staidness and composure plays off the absurdity of George, Kramer, Elaine, and Jerry. Swedberg was the straight character so she wasn't given punchlines—but whoever she was playing against was oft gut-busting. As a foil, Swedberg let her castmates polish, playing up the funniest, most ridiculous aspects of their characters. Spotter George pretend to smoke to exit of their relationship:
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Susan is never i of the gang, and the hilariously awkward tension between her and the rest of the cast felt authentic—even if it was bodily discomfort between the actors which was coming across. I have no thought what information technology was like to human action with Swedberg. But I know, as a viewer, her episodes are an absolute delight to lookout man. So something was working.
Alexander'south apologetic and kind tweet is just a footnote in the stories almost Swedberg being "fucking incommunicable." Then, we're left more often than not with a pile-up of criticism from actors much more famous about a guest star who was perfectly funny on-photographic camera. The most gaping hole in the accounts is the lack of Swedberg's voice. What was it like for her to come dorsum onto the biggest show on network TV, thinking she was about to marry a master character, only to be killed off? Was Alexander's frustration with having to deed with her every bit obvious during scenes as it appears to be? How was she treated by the residual of the cast—and what was it like finding out why she was killed off?
Unfortunately, nosotros may never know. Swedberg didn't answer to multiple requests to comment for this story. And since her days as Susan, she'due south left Hollywood behind completely.
Today, Swedberg teaches ukulele at schools and libraries effectually the country.
"Having children re-focused her life," reads the biography on her website. "Singing and playing ukulele with them brought her so much joy that she establish herself drifting away from auditions and into the classroom."
The bio briefly mentions Swedberg'southward interim career—merely non her time on Seinfeld. In a brusk interview earlier this year with the Vancouver Sun, a reporter tells Swedberg audiences are excited for her to play at the 10th annual Vancouver Ukulele Festival considering of her stint equally Susan. To which Swedberg answers, "Why? It [Seinfeld] was twenty years agone!"
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And in a 2014 profile in Ukulele magazine she says: "I don't call up interim is all that important. Non compared to music. For the most part, acting is just entertainment. I think there is some importance to the theater, but Telly and all that? Come on! It doesn't matter what monkey you rent for the job, information technology's all going to work out.
"Only music, music is a bones grade of human communication. Music is essential in keeping united states human being, in keeping us continued—continued within our own civilization, and connected to other cultures."
Is she making a dig about the show most zip? I couldn't find an interview in which she'due south ever mentioned the testify by proper noun. It seems she's moved on. So, for now, we're just left with Alexander'southward side of the story—and 28 awkwardly hilarious Seinfeld episodes that are merely as funny today as they were iii decades ago.
Maybe Swedberg knew exactly what she was doing, subsequently all.
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Source: https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a28223910/seinfeld-character-susan-heidi-swedberg-justice/
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