On the *Seinfeld* episode “The Caddy” (January 25, 1996), Kramer (Michael Richards) hires a golf caddy named Stan (Armin Shimerman) to aid him not only in his golf game but also in his life. Although Stan doesn’t play a large part in the episode, he ends up offering legal advice to Kramer late in the story.
Thanks to a series of convoluted plot twists, Kramer is involved in a car wreck after seeing a woman on the street wearing a brassiere and no shirt in public. Stan encourages Kramer to take the woman, Sue Ellen (Brenda Strong), to court. The episode’s climax, a clear lampoon of the infamous O. J. Simpson murder trial, features Sue Ellen being forced to try on a brassiere in front of the judge. She happily complies, proving the bra wasn’t hers.
Shimerman was a notable guest star on *Seinfeld*, which makes it curious that his role wasn’t larger in the episode. At the time, Shimerman had recently risen to fame playing the Ferengi Quark on *Star Trek: Deep Space Nine*, a role he held from three years earlier through to the end of that series in 1999.
Before his *Deep Space Nine* success, Shimerman was a prolific television actor, securing numerous guest roles in many hit shows dating back to the early 1980s. His credits include appearances on *Hill Street Blues*, *Cagney & Lacey*, *Remington Steele*, *The Facts of Life*, *Alice*, and *Sledge Hammer!*. He also enjoyed a recurring role on *Beauty and the Beast* and appeared in two episodes of *L.A. Law*. And that’s just a fraction of his extensive filmography.
Despite his impressive resume, Shimerman has admitted that he wasn’t particularly happy on the set of *Seinfeld*. At a pop culture convention called Supercon in 2017, a fan asked him about his experience working on the show. He confessed to feeling isolated, explaining that the four lead actors—Michael Richards, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jason Alexander, and Jerry Seinfeld—weren’t welcoming or inclusive. According to Shimerman, they barely spoke to him between takes.
When asked what it was like to work with the *Seinfeld* cast, Shimerman was frank. “Sure,” he said, “I hated them. Hated them!” He continued:
> “They were non-communicative, ugly, non-responsive, insular. I was a guest star. The episode’s called ‘The Caddy.’ I played a caddy. I played *THE* caddy. I was on that show for six days, five days? Every day, every day nobody said a word to me except cues. Nobody came up and started a conversation. I was already on *Deep Space Nine*. I was already a series regular on a TV show. That’s not acceptable. It’s not acceptable. If you have a guest star, if you have a day player, if you have an extra, you do not avoid them. You speak to them. We’re all human beings together.”
Shimerman went on to say, “Those four people on *Seinfeld* never said boo to me.” He then recounted a brief anecdote about an uncomfortable moment on set: he, Louis-Dreyfus, and Seinfeld had to sit together on a narrow bench for about 30 minutes while the crew reset some lighting. During that time, neither Louis-Dreyfus nor Seinfeld spoke to him. Instead, they talked over him, discussing their Christmas plans and upcoming vacations. Shimerman understandably felt ignored and left the set without any pleasant thoughts about his co-stars.
“It’s as though I wasn’t there,” he said.
He returned to *Deep Space Nine* with pleasure, no doubt happy to work with co-stars who at least spoke with him. Shimerman would go on to have a recurring role on *Buffy the Vampire Slayer*, voice multiple characters on *The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy*, and appear in a hundred other films and TV shows.
One can only hope he never had as cold an experience on a set as he did with *Seinfeld* again.
https://www.slashfilm.com/1951453/star-trek-deep-space-nine-actor-armin-shimerman-hated-seinfeld-the-caddy/
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