Sarah Silverman has opened up about an unpleasant experience she had while filming Seinfeld.
The comedian, 54, appeared in a 1997 episode of the legendary sitcom as the girlfriend of Kramer, played by Michael Richards.
While appearing on Michael Rosenbaum’s Inside of You podcast, Silverman recalled an awful moment where Richards allegedly snapped at her in the middle of a scene.
‘Have you ever been intimidated by an actor?’ Rosenbaum asked her, prompting Silverman to share her story.
In the scene, Richards is supposed to be terrified in bed while sleeping next to Silverman.
‘And I’m nervous, it’s our first scene, and I have a line that’s like, he hears a noise and the line is, “It’s probably the wind,”‘ she explains.
‘And I accidentally say, “It’s probably the rain.” And he broke character and he goes, “Do you see rain in that window?!” And I go “No.” And he goes, “Then why did you say rain? Is there rain in that window right now?”‘
Silverman imitated Richards as she told the story, indicating that he had abruptly snapped at her while pointing furiously towards the window.
Sarah Silverman has opened up about an unpleasant experience she had while filming Seinfeld with Michael Richards
Stunned by the awkward interaction, Rosenbaum responded, ‘Oh, that’s horrifying.’
‘I said that I just made a mistake, but he had a tantrum,’ she continued.
‘But listen, I’m sure he’s come a long way since then. People have days,’ she added.
Silverman said that the next day they were filming another scene and that Richards was entirely pleasant to her.
However, the A-list actor rubbed her the wrong way by inadvertently bragging about his wealth, which in turn caused her to snap at him this time.
‘We’re waiting to shoot and we’re just sitting there and he’s talking to me like I’m his buddy,’ she said.
‘And he’s rich and I have two roommates. And he’s like, “I’m looking at a house on Laurel Canyon but maybe I wanna get this…”
‘And I just go, “I don’t give a f**k!” I mustered up all my energy to say it. And he was kind of knocked off kilter, and then he was lovely to me,’ she said.
The comedian, now 54, appeared in a 1997 episode of the legendary sitcom as the girlfriend of Kramer
Silverman claims that Richards snapped at her when she got a line wrong
The actor’s seriousness on set has been well documented, with former co-stars claiming that he would get angry if anybody broke character or messed up a line
Silverman previously shared her bad experience with Richards back in 2021, but has insisted that the two became ‘casually friendly’ afterwards.
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who played Elaine Benes on Seinfeld, has also said that Richards could be ‘scary’ to work with due to how seriously he took his craft.
‘The conviction of the man is unsurpassed. So much so that if you screwed up his scene, he could really lose his temper,’ she revealed in a behind-the-scenes Seinfeld special.
‘I’d get angry, actually,’ Richards himself admitted when asked about how he reacted to co-stars breaking character and laughing during a take.
‘I’d say, “C’mon! Don’t.” I just felt that it was unprofessional. I mean, c’mon! Keep it going.’
Richards has largely remained out of the spotlight since his now infamous tirade at the Laugh Factory in 2006 where he exploded in anger and hurled racist slurs at hecklers during a stand-up show.
Last year he published his memoir, Entrances and Exits.
