Jerry Seinfeld was afraid of Judge Reinhold’s close-talker appearance on “Seinfeld.”

“Seinfeld” had numerous guest stars throughout its nine-season run. While many of them managed to antagonize the main characters in the universe, a select few actually got on the real Jerry Seinfeld’s nerves. Probably the most famous example is Seinfeld’s feud with the real-life “Soup Nazi” but it was about the character’s inspiration — noted soup chef Ali Yeganeh of Soup Kitchen International — being offended by Seinfeld’s version rather than anything Larry Thomas (who played the fictional Yev “Soup Nazi” Kassem) did. However, one particular star’s cameo managed to stare Seinfeld right in the face – literally.

In the “Seinfeld” season five two-parter “The Raincoats,” Judge Reinhold plays the memorable role of Aaron, Elaine’s newest boyfriend, who has an unfortunate penchant for standing very close to people while talking. At an appearance on “The Rich Eisen Show” Reinhold revealed that while rehearsing the scene, all he could do was notice that people seemed suspiciously having fun as he interacted with Seinfeld. That’s because, unlike Reinhold, they knew at the time that the scene really frightened the star. This is how Reinhold explained the situation:

“When I get to Jerry, I’m the closest, and then the crew laughed so much that it seemed like something was going on. And so we were having lunch or whatever and I said, ‘Why are you laughing like that?’ hard when I get to Jerry?” And they said that because he was so germophobe, he was afraid of what you were doing.

As anyone who saw the episode knows all too well, the information that Jerry Seinfeld was genuinely unsettled by his character’s narrow-minded quirk did not deter Judge Reinhold in any way. In fact, as he quickly mentioned in the interview, he somehow found a way to get even closer to the show’s star when they actually filmed the scene, ensuring that Seinfeld’s embarrassed expression didn’t require any acting:

“When it got to the camera, of course I almost touched his nose. I mean, our nose hairs were almost touching. I know he felt so uncomfortable. If you watch it again, you’ll see that he’s just crawling in his skin.

There are interesting stories behind many “Seinfeld” cameos. Philip Baker Hall said his life changed after becoming Lt. Joe Bookman playedthe library cop in the outstanding third season of “Seinfeld,” “The Library.” At the other end of the spectrum Bob Odenkirk had never seen “Seinfeld.” when he agreed to play Elaine’s unhappy medical student boyfriend Ben in the season eight episode “The Abstinence.” However, Reinhold alone can say that he spent a significant portion of his appearance on the legendary sitcom in Jerry Seinfeld’s private space.