Wayne Knight spent years being cast as the funny big guy, from Newman on Seinfeld to the doomed Dennis Nedry in Jurassic Park. So when he slimmed down, Hollywood didn’t quite know what to do with him.
Casting Directors Weren’t Sure Where He Fit
Knight, now 70, has lost more than 100 pounds since Jurassic Park in 1993. Instead of opening doors, he said the change slowed his career down for a while, because casting directors were unsure how to use him once he no longer fit the type they had always associated him with.
“It takes time for people to accept you as you are,” he explained, “and then they find out whether or not you can still do things without being fat.”
No Quick Fix
Knight was clear that the transformation didn’t happen overnight, and he shut down speculation that weight-loss drugs were behind it. The weight came off gradually over many years. Asked how he did it, he joked that he tried “everything that anyone could ever try,” listing “therapy to drugs to surgery to radiation to being taken by aliens.”
When pressed on the old-fashioned approach, he gave a classic deadpan answer: “What do you mean, not eating? Yes, that does work.”
Hello, Newman. Hello, Comeback.
The good news is that the industry seems to have caught up. Knight landed a prominent role in Five Nights at Freddy’s 2, proof that his comic timing never depended on his waistline.
For Seinfeld fans, he will always be Jerry’s sworn enemy, the mailman who once explained that the mail never stops. But after decades of being typecast, Knight is finally getting the chance to show Hollywood there is a lot more to him than one role.