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Because of that one undeniable truth, Seinfeld finds himself in the curious position of facing, at a relatively tender age (43), a sort of retirement. In this regard, you could say Jerry Seinfeld is the Bill Clinton of comedy, the boy wonder as lame duck, if only, that is, Seinfeld were more desperate to be loved. Instead, he is the same affable fellow with the slightly snarky finish that he plays on TV. "I've never had much interest in being liked," he offers. "And I think people like that. It's a relief. So many people want to be liked." Sitting on a large green sofa in his living room, dressed in the professional funny person's uniform of jeans, sneakers, T shirt (and optional Oxford shirt, unbuttoned), surrounded by exactly the kind of stuff a Long Island high school kid from the '60s might buy if he grew up to be a multimillionaire--car models, superhero models, Mets memorabilia, a mint-condition Schwinn Sting-Ray--Seinfeld comes across as a relatively contented man, perhaps the first self-actualized comic in history.
With 10 shows left to shoot, Seinfeld won't reveal much about how he plans to end Seinfeld--indeed he claims not to have figured it out himself except that he knows what the final episode's final moment will be. "It's not a big thing," he says of the finale. "It's the shoelace that comes undone in the men's room and touches the floor. That's the kind of mood I'm looking for." So Jerry and Elaine won't be getting married, as some fans have speculated. "Nah," Seinfeld says, pained, "that's not the show." (David, who left after the 1995-96 season, has been asked to come back and write the finale.) One surprise Seinfeld will reveal is that the last half-hour episode will be paired with a one-hour mock documentary about its making. Another concrete plan is that one of the final episodes will be shot on location in New York City--a first for the L.A.-based production. Though the question of spin-offs is out of Seinfeld's hands--Castle Rock, the show's production company, owns the rights to the characters--he and the rest of the cast swear they won't participate in, say, Everyone Loves Elaine or Kramer the Vampire Killer. (As for a future reunion show along the lines of the one planned for next season with Mary Tyler Moore and Valerie Harper reprising their characters from Moore's old show, Seinfeld recoils--"Good God!"--then pauses to consider the idea. "Well, maybe by then they'll have engineered the lenses that can take it."
Unlike most contemporary comedians whose entire careers are pointed toward the San Fernando Valley's sound stages, Seinfeld says he relishes returning to life on the road as a stand-up comic, which he claims as his true vocation, the "noblest endeavor." He plans to tour Europe and Australia this summer and then spend a week on Broadway filming an HBO special titled I'm Telling You for the Last Time; it will mark the last time he performs his current act. It's a kind of self-imposed trick, he says, to force him to write and perform new material. "I would like to be considered a great comedian. I don't think I'm there yet." Who is? "Richard Pryor. Bill Cosby. I haven't gotten personal enough yet to be considered great by my definition. That's what being great is, doing material only you could do and no one else. It's about getting to my truer inner feelings about things." Asked what kind of things, he offers, thoughtfully, "Breast implants."