Larry Thomas knew it was a big deal. The journeyman actor had been invited to audition for the No. 1 show on television. What he didn’t know was that landing the role of “The Soup Nazi” would be the defining moment of his career.
The now-famous Seinfeld episode first aired on Nov. 2, 1995, and Thomas has been joined at the hip ever since with the dour disciplinarian and his notorious catchphrase, “No soup for you!”
Like a hitchhiker picked up by a limo, Thomas is grateful for the ride and the many opportunities the sitcom role has provided, including an appearance in Toledo on Thursday (August 14) when the Mud Hens take on the Indianapolis Indians at 7pm.
Thomas will help Toledoans celebrate the 25th anniversary of Seinfeld by participating in the first-pitch ceremony at Fifth Third Field, then signing autographs on the concourse until 9pm. There will be special displays on the concourse, Seinfeld-themed contests, and video clips throughout the game.
“I’ll probably say ‘No soup for you!’ a hundred times at the baseball game,” Thomas said good-naturedly in a phone interview from Los Angeles. “It doesn’t matter that I’m sitting at the table signing autographs and shouting it at everybody ahead of them in line. For some reason they need me to say it to them personally.”
He’s written a book, Confessions of a Soup Nazi, that will be published this year. It tells his story of being a journeyman actor, taking whatever roles he can and going through the trials and tribulations of auditions. It also includes a number of his favorite recipes—for soups, of course.
“Half the world thinks I’m a chef because I played a chef that was modeled after a real chef [in Manhattan],” Thomas said. “People’s realities are so screwed up. They tell me, ‘Oh, I went to your restaurant in New York!’ But I’ve always been an amateur cook.”
Most people don’t understand what it’s like to be a journeyman actor, he said. The 57-year-old actor has played more than 60 roles, according to the authoritative Internet Movie Data Base (IMDb.com), including appearances in the movies “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery” and “Postal” and the TV shows “Scrubs” and “Sabrina, the Teenage Witch.”
“There are day-to-day things you have to do. The day jobs you have to work,” he said. “And going into auditions, there are things you have to contend with. My son, who’s 21 now, said the last thing he’d ever want to be is an actor.”
Thomas is friendly and easygoing on the phone, but one thing that rankles him is when people ask if he’s ever done anything besides the Soup Nazi.
While that “dumb question” could really flip his switch, Thomas said he keeps his cool knowing that if he doesn’t “it will be all over the internet.”
In reality, he explained, he didn’t just “magically appear out of nowhere” and get hired as the Soup Nazi. “Think about it: It’s the hottest show on television, they’re in their seventh season. Are they going to give the title role [of an episode] to a guy who’s never acted in his life?”
In fact, he proudly adds, he was nominated for an Emmy Award for the Soup Nazi character.
He enjoys telling the story of how he got the life-changing part.
“Usually you get a call in the evening for an audition the next day. They will usually fax (or email you these days) the scenes you’re going to audition for. In this case, it was about 7:30 the night before the audition and they said there wasn’t anything on paper but that the name of the character was the Soup Nazi and I would have a Middle Eastern accent,” Thomas recalled.
He popped in a videotape of Lawrence of Arabia and listened to Omar Sharif to get an idea of how a Middle Eastern accent should sound. He called a friend, standup comic Tom Ayers, and the two batted around ideas for Soup Nazi lines.
“I said that if a guy is serving soup and a Seinfeld character gets on his bad side, he would probably say to George, ‘Go to the end of the line! For you, no soup!’ My friend liked that line and said just in case they improvise, make sure to throw that in.”
Thomas wore a military uniform and a beret to the set, just to stand out from the crowd. And he really got into the mindset of the Soup Nazi while preparing for the audition.
“First thing when I walked in, Jerry said, ‘Hi!’ I wanted to do 10 things at that moment. I was an avid Seinfeld fan … but I Iooked at Jerry and just grunted.”
Seinfeld laughed—and kept laughing throughout the audition, as did Larry David, the show’s influential co-writer.
Thomas thought the Soup Nazi would be in three scenes, but it turned out to be six. Afterward, he waited in the hallway for what seemed like eternity, then got called back for another reading.
This time, Seinfeld asked him to take a kinder, gentler approach. That didn’t go well. Nobody laughed.
Walking out of the set, feeling like he’d just blown the biggest opportunity of his career, his pager went off. It was his agent who wanted to inform him he’d just been hired and needed to be on the Seinfeld soundstage at 9 the next morning.
When he showed up, the star of the show told Thomas he had made a mistake and that the meaner chef was much funnier.
“One thing that amazed me is Jerry Seinfeld’s amazing lack of ego in these kinds of matters,” Thomas said. “With the money and the power he has amassed, none of it has affected him when he’s trying to decide what’s funny and what’s not. Which is why I think his new stuff is still funny. His ego never gets in the way of making a decision like that.”
Larry Thomas “The Soup Nazi” will be featured at Seinfeld Night at the Mud Hens, 7pm Thursday (August 14).
Tickets are $10. Information: 419-725-4367 or milb.com