Lawrence Tierney was cast as Alton Benes. He was known for his bad-guy roles in films during the 1940s and 1950s, such as "Dillinger", "The Hoodlum" and "Born to Kill". Tierney's appearance in the episode is one of his only comedic roles. Cast and crew members were very impressed with his performance and intended to make Alton Benes a recurring character. However, they were frightened of him; during filming it was discovered that Tierney had stolen a butcher knife from the knife block in Jerry's apartment set. Various cast members remember Seinfeld encountering Tierney and stating "Hey Lawrence, what do you got there in your jacket?" Tierney, realizing he had been caught, tried to make a joke about how he thought taking the knife would be funny, by reenacting a scene from Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" (1960), holding the knife above his head and making threatening motions towards Seinfeld. Tom Cherones, Jason Alexander and Julia Louis-Dreyfus saw this happen, and, as Alexander recalled, it "scared the living crap out of all of us." Cherones stated that, afterwards, Larry David would jokingly threaten to have Tierney back on the show if Cherones did his work badly.