Larry Thomas opened up during Fan Expo Chicago about appearing in an Emmy-nominated performance as The Soup Nazi on Seinfeld. He also discusses what led him to go into acting along with studying improv.

Spike Feresten wrote the episode, which was directed by Andy Ackerman and first aired during Season 7 on November 2, 1995.

No soup for you!

It’s so nice to meet you.
Larry Thomas: Nice to meet you too.

Being someone who’s Jewish, how does it feel to be associated with a character who’s called the Soup Nazi?
Larry Thomas: Oh G-d. You have to realize that not only am I a Jew who played a character called the Soup Nazi, I also played Osama Bin Laden in Postal and a Saddam Hussein look-alike in Arrested Development, so I’ve pretty much violated everything against Judaism there is as an actor. The good thing is that my mom, who’s gone now, was totally proud of me and never saw those things as a violation of what she wanted her son to be, so that’s all I needed. As long as my mom liked it, I was fine, but it was a joke. Even when I was a little kid and my mom wouldn’t give me anything extra on my allowance, I would go, Ma, you’re such a Nazi. So for us, it’s a joke. We get it.

There’s something about Judaism and having that dark sense of humor.
Larry Thomas: Yeah, well, I think that if I could speak to four people that went through a lot, that I never had to go through, a dark sense of humor had to be essential because they lived through a lot of darkness. I think that’s what got them through it was having a sense of humor.

How did you first get interested in acting?
Larry Thomas: It was a girl. I was majoring in journalism at my college and I met this girl over the summer who was a theater major. I didn’t get a date with her that summer and when I was registering for classes that fall, I think I needed one more credit in journalism. I saw the theater classes in the program and I thought, oh wow, if I took one of these classes, I’ll get a chance to get next to Stacy and maybe then we can go out. That was the entire reason. Once I did my first theater class, I just fell in love with the feeling of acting. I wasn’t good at it, but whether you’re good at it or not good at it, it gives you a certain feeling and that feeling I really liked. I ended up spending the next at least 10 to 15 years of my life trying to get good at it.

Did you study any improv?
Larry Thomas: Yes. Well, during the 80s, improv, at least in L.A and probably everywhere, was the thing. Every actor wanted to be in an improv group so studying improv was really important. It’s a simple procedure but you’ve got to be able to stick to it. Don’t deny, always say yes and, and don’t try to be funny. That’s the credo of improvisation. A lot of people can’t stick with that. They try to be funny. They deny on stage. But if you pay attention to that, we had some pretty good times doing improv in the 80s.

Was there a meaningful instructor in your life?
Larry Thomas: Yeah, there was a guy named J.J. Barry in improv. He’s gone now but he was a Second City guy. He was a brilliant improv teacher. The funny thing about me eventually getting well-known for doing Seinfeld is—long before Seinfeld was a TV show—in J.J.’s class, I was doing an improv scene with a classmate. I remember we were supposed to be two FBI agents on our way to solve a crime and one of us threw in a hot dog stand. It was like, hey, let’s get a hot dog. Don’t put ketchup on that! You can’t put ketchup on that! It’s got to be mustard—mustard and relish. We kind of got into that, and then we just tried to move on, and J.J. said, no, stay with the hot dogs. Stay with the hot dogs. And we did. The class was in hysterics at the minutia of hot dogs. Many years later, when I saw Seinfeld for the first time, I thought, oh my G-d, they’re doing what we did with the hot dogs. So yeah, my improv training and J.J. Barry taught me what they were doing in Seinfeld long before they were doing it.

What was it like working on Seinfeld with Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David, Jason Alexander, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus?
Larry Thomas: It was the easiest job I ever had. They were so welcoming and easy. Jerry actually didn’t quite understand my take on the Soup Nazi, and he actually tried to give me some direction to be a little—he actually wanted me to be a little nicer. In the end, he just said, you know what, man, forget about the direction I gave you, just do what you did when you came in. That’s what I did and so it was really easy working with him. Larry David, in a working situation, is like a mathematician of comedy. Down to a fraction, he knows what’ll work and what won’t so that was really cool. Jason and Julia were so nice and friendly. It made me feel at ease my first day on the set. It was a really fun and easy job to do.

I would be remiss if I did not add that Jonathan Wolff belongs to the shul that I grew up at back home.
Larry Thomas: Oh, really? That is fabulous. I hung out with Jonathan in San Diego just a couple of months ago and we’re both part of this. Although Jonathan, I don’t know, he has like 75 sitcom themes to his credit besides Seinfeld. But it was funny, because he said to me, “I did the music for two other sitcoms you were on.” It was Caroline in the City and one other show—it might have been Tony Danza’s show, I forget which one it was, but I didn’t even know that, that I had worked on like two other shows where he did the themes. Yeah, what a musical genius he is. (In an email, Jonathan confirmed the three shows were Caroline in the City, The Tony Danza Show, and The Geena Davis Show.)

Thank you so much. It was so nice to meet you.
Larry Thomas: My pleasure.

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