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Emmy Award winner Tony Shalhoub who is famous for playing the title role on Monk and Abe Weisman on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel has recently been in the news for reasons he says are ‘not true.’
The Maisel star was on the TODAY Show on Thursday morning to discuss the upcoming Monk reboot, a movie that’s currently in pre-production but has brought back the original Monk cast and writing staff, a rare feat in reboots.
Al Roker asked Tony Shalhoub about the recent rumors that Tony had auditioned for the role of Cosmo Kramer on Seinfeld prior to doing Monk. Shalhoub laughed and then emphatically said “that is not true” before explaining what really happened. Screenrant, Collider, Cracked, Vulture…all of these outlets have articles from one time or another mistakenly claiming Tony Shalhoub had auditioned for the role of Cosmo Kramer.
Tony says he did audition for Seinfeld but he auditioned for the role of George Costanza, not Cosmo Kramer. He then joked with Roker “…I wonder whatever happened with that (show)… Did I get that (role)?”
TODAY co-host Craig Melvin then asked Tony ‘what happened?’ with the audition. Tony Shalhoub smiles and says “I’ll tell you what happened… Jason Alexander happened. I can’t tell you how many roles I’ve lost to Jason Alexander. Let’s not go down that road…”
There’s no point in rattling off all of the awards Jason Alexander has won over the years for both Seinfeld and other projects. He’s one of the most respected actors in Hollywood but he also got his start on Broadway where he’s a living legend. There’s no shame whatsoever in losing a role to Jason Alexander, a generational talent.
For what it’s worth, Tony Shalhoub would’ve made a much better George Costanza than Cosmo Kramer. I’m not saying he would’ve made a better George than Jason Alexander because Jason was PERFECT for that role. But I think he’s more well-suited for George than Kramer, that’s just my two cents.
In the same interview, Tony revealed that he and his former Maisel cast members all have a group text that’s still active. In fact, he said he was going to see his former co-stars tonight. Tony is a Yale-trained actor with an MFA. Frankly, he’d be great for any role he’d go out for.