“My mind was spinning…”: Jerry Seinfeld’s Dream Dinner With Steven Spielberg Was Nearly Ruined By His Wife

Stand-up comedian, actor, writer, and producer Jerry Seinfeld is known for his observational comedy. He is widely popular for playing a semi-fictionalized version of himself on the NBC sitcom Seinfeld. He co-created the show with Larry David and received praise for creating one of the best sitcoms of all time. Seinfeld is also regarded as one of the best comedians of all time.

Jerry Seinfeld is one of the most influential people in the world of comedy, and reportedly his sitcom went on to redefine comedy on television. Seinfeld and David’s collaboration for the sitcom has been such an iconic one that even today the lines from the show are being used. Seinfeld recalled his dinner with one of the greatest directors, and after his story, it’s very apt to call him an icon.

Jerry Seinfeld recalls his dinner with Steven Spielberg

Comedian-actor-writer Jerry Seinfeld, in his conversation with Oprah Winfrey, shared an incident where his wife almost ruined the dinner outing with Steven Spielberg and his wife. Winfrey asked Seinfeld at the time about his Bee Movie, to which he said,

I asked Steven Spielberg to direct a commercial I was going to make for American Express. I’d never met him, but I thought, ‘What the hell—why don’t I call? I am Jerry Seinfeld; I’m just a nobody. Spielberg said, ‘I can’t do it, but why don’t we have dinner tomorrow in East Hampton?‘

Seinfeld added that he was so excited to meet the filmmaker that he compared having dinner with him to his Bar Mitzvah. He recalled that the next morning, he woke up, got dressed, and just waited for time to pass because he was too excited to do anything.

The actor noted that 20 minutes before he and his wife had to leave to meet Steven Spielberg, his wife asked him about her outfit, and he wanted her to change the blouse, which was ‘slightly see-through.’ Seinfeld said to her, ‘I’m not crazy about the top.’ He said to Oprah,

Every husband knows when he has moved into DEFCON 2. My mind was spinning with all the right and wrong ways to talk to a woman about her clothes. Because you’re a good husband, you don’t just say anything! You think first, especially in a moment like this. We’d only been married for three years then, so I wasn’t very experienced.

Jerry Seinfeld said being a good husband is like being a good stand-up comic—you need ten years before you can even call yourself a beginner. He shared that he wanted to get his wife into another blouse without a fight, and the time was running out. After they were able to conclude and left to meet the filmmaker, he got a ticket.

The actor recalled he wanted to reach the restaurant early, but the filmmaker and his wife were driving behind him, and when they got out, he recognized him and said hello! Oprah Winfrey asked Jerry Seinfeld it must not have been so bad walking in together with Spielberg, to which he said that it wasn’t, adding he had a fun story about it now.

Jerry Seinfeld says confusion and disorientation replaced the movie business

In an interview with GQ in early 2024, the actor who appeared in his movie Unfrosted shared that the film business is over and movies are no longer the pinnacle in the social, and cultural hierarchy. He added that he deeply admires the actors who worked on the project, but the industry is in crisis.

Seinfeld shared,

I thought I had done some cool stuff, but it was nothing like the way these people work. They’re so dead serious! They don’t have any idea that the movie business is over. They have no idea.

He further explained that earlier, when movies came out, if they were good, everyone went to see them, discussed them, and quoted lines and scenes from them. But now it’s like walking through a fire hose of water, just trying to see. When asked what, according to him, has replaced movies, Seinfeld said,

I would say confusion. Disorientation replaced the movie business. Everyone I know in show business, every day is going, ‘What is going on? How do you do this? What are we supposed to do now?’

The actor was also asked if the Seinfeld finale bothered him all these years, to which he said a little bit. He added that he, along with Jeff Schaffer and Larry David, discussed the TV finales, which they thought were great, and Mad Men was the top. He shared that they kept thinking about what went wrong with their sitcom’s finale, and the answer was the finale scene.

Seinfeld is available to stream on Netflix.