Jerry Seinfeld looks out at the less than half-filled movie theater, calmly palming the mic like a veteran stand-up comic. And for a while on a sunny September morning, that’s exactly what he is.
He describes calling Steven Spielberg out of the blue three years ago and, in the course of the conversation, relating an idea for an animated film. “He told me to do it,” Seinfeld recalls. “And when Steven Spielberg tells you to do something, you do it.” Beat. “Because he’s the king of the Jews.”
The line gets a laugh, of course, and also gives notice that the multimillionaire TV star looks up to at least one other person in the entertainment world. It’s the closest Seinfeld gets to self-depreciation all day.
The comic was in San Francisco to kick off a promotional tour for “Bee Movie,” the animated comedy he wrote (with a trio of “Seinfeld” writers) and stars in as the voice of the lead character. Seinfeld and director Steve Hickner show a bunch of scenes, field questions and adjourn to a nearby hotel for an afternoon of interviews.
The hero of “Bee Movie” is Barry B. Benson, a bee fresh out of college who isn’t content to be a drone — especially once he gets a taste of life outside the hive. One of the sequences, of Barry floating in a pool while his parents berate him, evokes a certain 1967 Dustin Hoffman film.
“In some of the original drafts, the entire movie was an homage to ‘The Graduate,'” he says. “That’s my favorite movie. The only scene that survived was the pool scene. But the whole thing, the whole idea that he was seeing this girl he wasn’t supposed to be seeing, and keeping it secret from his parents, and he didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life, it all started with ‘The Graduate.'”
Seinfeld cast himself in the part of the Dustin Hoffman character. That young man was named Benjamin Braddock, and Barry B. Benson is the metaphorical son of Ben.
The story unfolds in Seinfeld’s Manhattan, not California. And honey is the ideal career path, not plastics.
“Bees are funny,” Seinfeld says. “They dress funny. They have a very funny little world they live in. You know, they all live on top of each other in small apartments. And living in NewYork, I kind of related to it.”
“Bee Movie” will clearly play as New York humor forsome people, while others will see it as Jewish humor. But is there, in fact, a difference?
“I would ask you the same question,” Seinfeld replies.
“All humor is New York Jewish humor. It started [with] the Marx Brothers and vaudeville on the Lower East Side, and grew out from there. I mean, obviously, from Eastern Europe, and then really germinated in New York City in the beginning of the 20th century, and then started to go out across America, and then there became different kinds of humor in America. But the root of it, to me, is all that — it all starts there.”
In the course of the interview, it emerges that Seinfeld made that original cold call to Spielberg to ask him to direct the comedian in an American Express commercial.
“I thought maybe he’d do it,” Seinfeld recalls thinking. “‘It’s only a couple of days, maybe he’s got nothing to do.’ But he never has nothing to do.”
Calling Steven Spielberg without an introduction may seem audacious, but Seinfeld views his own name recognition as a tool to be employed in service to his work. “You’ve got to use your celebrity,” he says, with pragmatic self-awareness.
That bit of advice may never come in handy for most of us. So Seinfeld offers another chunk of wisdom that seems easily proffered from his lofty perch, but carries the weight of hard-earned experience.
“There’s nothing you can attempt to pursue that’s a mistake, even if it’s a failure,” he says with deliberate certainty. “Failure is not as big a deal as people make it seem. It actually is one of the best things in life to help you advance.”
“Bee Movie” opens Friday, Nov. 2 in Bay Area theaters.