Instead of standing in front of the camera, Jerry Seinfeld has chosen to sit in the director’s chair for the Netflix film Unfrosted. In a recent interview with GQ, he went into depth about what it was like for the first time in his long career to do something completely different from acting and instead direct, and he really didn’t hold back on his words.
“It was completely new to me. I thought I’d done some cool stuff, but it was nowhere near the way these people work. They’re so dead serious! They have no idea the movie business is over. They have no idea .”
When asked to explain what he meant, he added:
“Film no longer stands at the top of the social and cultural hierarchy, as it did for much of our lives. When a film came out, and it was good, we all went to see it. We discussed it. We quoted lines and scenes we liked. Now we’re walking through a firehose of water just trying to see.”
So what does he think has replaced his film interest?
“Depression? Discomfort? I’d say confusion. Disorientation has replaced the movie business. Everyone I know in show business says every day, ‘What’s going on? How are you doing this? What are we going to do now?’
Instead, something that has grown in popularity right now is stand up, and he went on to talk about his career in it:
“I’ve done enough things that I have my own thing, which is more valuable than it’s ever been. Stand-up is like being a cabinetmaker, and everybody needs a guy who’s good with wood… It are trees everywhere, but it is not so easy to make a nice table.
So the metaphor is that if you have a good craft, you’re kind of impervious to the vagaries of the industry. Audiences now flock to stand-up because it’s something you can’t fake. It’s like platform diving. You can say you’re a platform diver, but in two seconds we can tell if you are or not. That’s what people like about stand-up. They can count on it. Everything else is fake.”
