EMMAUS, Pa. — It took roughly two decades for Steve Hytner to find his way back to standup comedy.
During that time away, he landed what would become his most recognizable role — overbearing and overly eager standup comedian, Kenny Bania.
Hytner will be revisiting the character when he performs Thursday night at the Emmaus Theatre in Emmaus. But don’t expect to fill up on nostalgia.
“There’s a certain amount of the audience that’s there because of the ‘Seinfeld’ connection, because ‘Seinfeld’ is that 800-pound gorilla. It just is,” Hytner tells 69 News. “I’m appreciative of them coming out with the idea of, ‘well, I don’t know if he’s a good standup or not. I know he played a really bad one’.”
He adds, “I like to come out and kick butt for about a half-hour or 40 minutes before I even bring it up because I feel like they’re really going to enjoy my standup.”
The character has been a goldmine for fans who enjoy reciting lines back to the actor, which he’s fine with — to a point.
“I just take it as a positive. First of all, I don’t want to get too zen about it, I can’t do anything about it anyway, so I just choose to embrace it,” Hytner says. ““I’m fine with all of them. I just don’t like when somebody asks me a question in that, I’ll explain, they’ll go, ‘Hey, did you ever get that suit back?’ It’s a fictional program. I hate to break it to you. I don’t know how to answer that. If they’re just yelling it out, great, but when there’s a question and I have to pretend we live in an alternative universe, then no thank you.”
Hytner joined “Seinfeld” during the show’s sixth season. He says for the audition, the character was only described as being the most annoying person in the world. But he decided to take a much different approach than other actors who were auditioning for the part.
“Other people were taking it as he’s mad at Jerry and I could hear them doing it and just on a dime I was like well, what if he’s annoying because he adores Jerry? So the real moment, to me, was Jerry (Seinfeld) and Larry (David) sitting in that room, listening to 10 guys for like an hour, doing it angry and just the relief of me coming in and doing a whole other puppy dog thing.”
Hytner says he still felt pressure to deliver even after landing the role. He remembers rehearsing for his first scene as Bania and questioning whether his approach was too over the top, despite cracking up the main cast members. But Hytner says Jerry Seinfeld insisted not to tone it down or pull back.
“So we do the taping, my first scene, I walk in and I just go, ‘Hey, Jerry!’ and the studio audience lost their minds, like they had known this character for five years, just lost their minds. And Jerry, because how they were in the booth, he could turn upstage to me, where they (the audience) wouldn’t see him and he mouthed ‘I told you.’ That was my first moment on the show.”
He adds, “If that character that large doesn’t work on that show, in the business, that’s gonna get around, real quick, like instantaneously. So really it was just the guts to trust it because that character has to be that big or it’s not going to work, you know? He has to be that guy.”
Hytner would make many memorable returns as Bania throughout the remainder of the show’s nine-season run. Hytner says by the time he joined “Seinfeld,” the cast was already aware of the enormity of the show’s impact on pop culture.
“You’ll hear actors tell the story of, we just thought we were doing a show, we didn’t know 10 years later it was going to become all this. Well, ‘Seinfeld’, you kind of knew and there was a certain, not only pride, but responsibility that the shows had to stay at that level,” he says. “Larry and Jerry, they went for actors that could come in and nail it and I think that’s one of the things that makes that show just so lasting, because you want to see those actors, the circle of characters that I was lucky enough to be a part of.”
The New York native would go on to build a lengthy resume that also includes the films “In the Line of Fire” and “Forces of Nature” and the TV shows “The Suite Life of Zack & Cody,” “Good Luck Charlie,” “Hung” and “Working.” But Hytner says he eventually fell out of love with the audition process, prompting his return to comedy.
“Acting is the most collaborative art form in the world. You’re working with 100 different people – other actors, directors, hair, makeup, wardrobe, sets,” Hytner says. “That can be – enjoyable – but standup is the least collaborative art form; it’s just you and the audience.”
While it’s nice to have instant recognizability from playing a popular character on screen, Hytner says that doesn’t necessarily translate to automatic laughs when you’re on stage.
“People think, oh yeah — especially young comics — it must be nice when you have those credits and you can go out and the audience already knows you,” Hytner says. “That is nice, but that buys you five minutes. They paid money. If you’re not funny, they’re not happy.”
Hytner says he has learned to not worry about whether he can make people laugh. He says he can’t wait to make them laugh.
“I like to get the laughs. I am driven by that and sometimes the pace of my show and the insistency of the jokes is fast,” Hytner says. “I didn’t go back to standup and go, oh I can slow down; no, I like to please the crowd. I like the audience laughing. Part of me feels like I have to apologize for that, but, that’s what they’re there for. I get it. I’m not an ugly man, but they didn’t come out to see – well maybe they did come out to see the face a little bit.”
While his focus is on comedy these days, Hytner has not let his acting chops fall to the wayside.
“If you see my act, there is a certain amount of performance to it, you can kind of call acting,” Hytner says. “It’s just kind of ironic that my most iconic role as an actor is as a comedian, which is just kind of bizarre.”
Steve Hytner performs 7:30 Thursday night at the Emmaus Theatre in Emmaus. Show time is 7:30 p.m.