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'Seinfeld' Star Says Weight Loss Hurt Acting Career
Wayne Knight has been a working actor in the entertainment industry for decades, first entering living rooms across America with a recurring part on Seinfeld and later appearing as computer programmer Dennis Nedry in Steven Spielberg's beloved 1993 epic Jurassic Park. Knight has continued to work in recent years, but his offers have notably changed from those in the '90s.
Knight spoke to TMZ and described how losing weight over the years has affected his career—though not necessarily for the better.
"It's [been] over a period of many years," he said of his weight loss journey, joking his solution was "Everything that anyone could ever try, from therapy to drugs to surgery to radiation to being taken by aliens. Every single one of them, and one of them worked." When asked which one it was, he stated plainly "I don't know."
Knight admitted that he used to go to the gym to work out but stopped after paparazzi caught him on camera with "resting b---h face" after a workout. When asked how much weight he's lost in total over the years, he quipped he's dropped "7,000 pounds."
"I lost 10, I gain 50, I lose 100, I gain 12," he explained. "From Jurassic Park to now, it's about 110 pounds."
As for if his weight loss has impacted his career, he pointed out that it has, but "in a bad way." His belief is that longtime fans might not be fully comfortable with a slimmer version of him. "It takes time for people to accept you as you are, and then they find out whether or not you can still do things without being fat."
"It's just what it is," he said. "You just have to accept the fact that you can't sell something that you're not."
His roles in recent years have included more movies and shows geared toward children and young adults. "Give an old skinny guy a shot!" he concluded.
Knight recently starred in Prime Video's horror series Them and guest starred on an episode of That '90s Show, streaming now on Netflix. His next movie, The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie, hits theaters Feb. 28, 2025.