February 1, 2024 • 38 mins
Jeff and Susie discuss what it was like to develop Curb Your Enthusiasm before shooting the pilot.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You can watch the original episode we'll be discussing in
every other episode of HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm, including the
new and final season, on Max. You can also watch
the video version of the History of Curb Your Enthusiasm
podcast on Max and YouTube as well. Links available in
the episode description. What's the show, Jeff, what's the name
(00:28):
of the show.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
The name of the show is the History of Curb
Your Enthusiasm with Susie Esman and Jeff Garland. And she
is Susie Esman. I am Jeff Garland. This is the show.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
This is the show. This is our first episode. Yes,
and we're going to talk about pre the show. Pre
the show was the so called pilot, which was actually
just a special. When it was first meeting, it was
called Larry David Kirby Your Enthusiasm.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Larry David Kirby Your Enthusiasm.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
And I was not in it. So I'm going to
ask you a lot about it.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Oh, please ask me questions if you want to start
from pre curb where it started, and then all the
way through, I've got, you know, different anecdotes before we
even go into the thing.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Was this nineteen ninety nine, I believe.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
It might have been starting in ninety eight. I can't remember,
but we shot it for sure in ninety nine.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Do you know what year Larry left Seinfeld?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
I have no idea.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yeah, but he had been out of Seinfeld for a
few years, the.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Last two years he was not the showrunner.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Well.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Prior to doing this, yeah, he had done two things
which were not that successful. One was the finale of Seinfeld,
where he took a lot of shit. Yeah, a lot
of shit and it was unfair. And Sour Grapes, which
I can tell you I auditioned for Sour Grapes. Believe
(01:47):
or not, he knows this. I auditioned for Sour Grapes,
the part of a limo driver who gets into a
fight with one of the guys. What have you? That
script from page one on had me laughing. What if
I said, page six on, that's interesting? Page one on.
I was laughing hysterically. Yeah, so hard because I imagined
(02:10):
it and I Larry's writing appeals to me. So when
I saw it, it was disappointing to me because it
wasn't the script. The script was the movie in my head.
And then I saw it and so some things work.
I thought it was well cast. Well, I thought everything
about it was going to do. It just doesn't By
the way, it's so hard to make a movie. It
didn't work. But so he's coming off things that. That's
(02:32):
why I said not too successful, although I imagine although
there are a lot of viewers, but he took a
lot of shit. Yeah, okay, So if you're jumping to
somewhere and I know there's something before that that I
want to talk about, I'll let you know.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
So I just want to get you know, just just
for the record, how this all came about. I know
you and Larry were sharing an office suite, is that correct?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
It was Larry David, Alan's Wybell and Billy Crystal and
was over on Maple at Castle Rock, Castle Rock, And
I was just excited to be near Larry David and
to be near Billy Crystal, and I wanted to say
I was thrilled to write with with Ellen's Ye Bell.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
So where was your career at this point? I mean,
you were doing stand up for many years and you
and I first, let me just say, you and I
first met doing stand up. And that's when I first
met Larry as well at Catchurizing car. Yes, in the eighties,
and we.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Hit it off right away, right away. We were friends
like boom, and I.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Had a nickname for you. I called you Smokey.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
You did call me smoky. Do you remember the reason why?
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Oh that's so boy. There wasn't a reason. I just
looked at you and.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
You went smoking.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
You were smoking.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Can you think of a person who's less smoky than
me smoking if I had a cigar all the time.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
I wasn't thinking smoky.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I remember the smoky Mountains smoke, but.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
I wasn't thinking in terms of smoky like cigarettes or
any or the mountains or Smokey Robinson. I wasn't thinking.
I was just.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Although I do great versions of Smoky Robinson and the Miracles,
i'd never heard that. Naked in the mirror in the morning,
I keep going.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
I don't know. I just looked. It was, you know,
the smoky the bear, you were cuddly, you're going down
the smoky.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
It was, well, there you go. Yes, I'm with you.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
You are lovable. That's what you were. And so I
named you smoky.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Okay, yeah, alright, so go ahead, all right. So so
also I want to add, at that point, I had
been doing parts on TV shows small parts in different sitcoms.
And I had a lot of development deals that had
gone nowhere, okay, where I was under contract for a
year to develop something and it went nowhere.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Which, by the way, I'm just going to say for
the audience is extremely frequent with development, oh very much so.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
But I've been lucky that I got one after another.
I was development deal Johnson.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
I mean you were you were mad about you?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Well, that's what I was about that I was. I
was a recurring I'm mad about you. But I was
on that show a lot, and I was teamed up
with alan'sy Bell to do a compat.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
I don't want to tell people who Alan is for
those who don't know, Alan's Wybell was one of the
original SNL writers and he's a comedy writer and write.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
That's all You're gonna say, Yes, but why Bell co
created It's Gary Shanling.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Yes, he did, yes, and he's a very well known No, he's.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
He's and by the way, done something he wrote on Curb.
He was like an extra writer as your sultant. And
also he was really funny on Curb. He's just one
of the funniest.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
People, very close friends.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Yes, and by the way. I couldn't love a guy
more except for Lee Kurnis sitting right to the right
of me. Yeah, he doesn't even enjoy that.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
So you're doing a development deal.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
With Yes, for CBS. They want us to create a
show that is a companion show to everybody loves Raymond
and Ellen and I were teamed up, you know, we're
writing whatever, and Larry would come by and we would
talk to both of us, and I would also go
(06:20):
into Larry's office, who had young children the same as mine,
and our bonding came. Now, I already knew Larry from
stand up and I loved him, but our bonding came
on Shirley Temple. Both our kids at that time watched
all the time. They watched the best of Shirley Temple,
(06:42):
all these songs, you know, the Codfish Ball, all that stuff. Yes,
Larry and I knew the words to all of them,
having so I would go in his office and start
singing one and he joined me. So it was really fun.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
So Shirley Temple brought you together. And see I never
knew no.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
But there's also and irony that I'll bring up in
a second. So also when Larry would come to our office.
We'd tell him how we were doing and my favorite thing.
One of the main people actors we wanted for our
show was Adam West in a key role. Is my boss.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Adam West who played Batman.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Batman, who I do an impression of, Hello, Susie, how
are you so help me? If the Joker, Riddler and
the Penguin come near you, I will have to get
Chief O'Hara. All right, anyhow, thank you. So Larry comes
in and the first thing he first joke he said,
(07:38):
is we're working on this. We told him our idea
for Adam West, and Larry goes, eh, I think you
can get him. That was my worst Larry impression I've
ever done. I do a good one. I do this
one stylized impression. Anyhow, one day this is I'm getting
to the core now, Okay. One day Larry came in
(07:59):
and asked Allan and I to go to lunch. Alan
did not want it, couldn't go. Not you didn't want to,
you know, it couldn't go. So Larry and I went
to lunch at the Cuckaroo across the street from Natan Nels.
I remember distinctly the Cuckaroo. He and I are sitting
in the back and he's asking me a lot of
(08:19):
questions about stand up.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Now I have a question for you, yes, because my
timeline is off. When I met Larry in nineteen eighty
five doing stand up, you aren't around yet. Then in
New York, I came up a bit after that, So
had were you around in the days when he was
hanging out the most?
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Definitely the one I saw him do was look at
the audience, look around at the very beginning, go not tonight.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Yeah. I witnessed one where he looked at the audience
said I don't think so that before that.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Yeah, yes, Well, by the way, there's a boundary that
like it's I believe it's eighty six when I moved
to New York. I'm pretty sure. Okay, okay, so shortly, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
And when we met Larry, he was a stand up comic.
That's where he was.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
He was a stand up comic. No hold on.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
He had done Friday. He had done.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Fridays, which I used to love, but primarily I loved
him and Michael Richards and Larry used to do these
pro wrestlers who do this and it was just a
He was hilarious on that show. Everything he did and
his look, so he was someone I looked up to.
When I met him, I'm like, wow, Larry David.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Yeah. And you know what else I remember from those days.
I remember once I did a new bit or something
and he was in the room watching me, and somebody
told me it was Scott Carter actually told me afterwards
Larry thought that new bit you did was really funny.
And I remember feeling like you always wanted Larry to
think you were funny. There was a respect level there.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
But by the way, the idea that I have Larry
David's number, that I say things that he thinks they're
hilarious all the time, that he laughs hard from the
stud but bullshit that I say, the non secuit is
the nonsense, Oh you're a loser. But the point is
that to have his number every single time he laughs
(10:10):
hard at me, I'm like, this is the coolest.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Yes, there's just something about it.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
So I just want to add that's where my career was.
But something I had done previous to this moment, this
is the key thing. I had helped develop John Stewart's
Unlevined and Dennis Larry's Lock and Load.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
So those were stand up.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Specials for Dennis Leary and John Stewart, two guys I
was friends with, and I used to think that I
was the co director, But as I thought about it,
you don't direct stand up, you know, and the other
person directs the cameras. So what I really was, even
though I got a credit on one as director and
one is point being is I was a I developed it.
(10:52):
I was a consultant, but i'd really hands on development.
I went on tour with John Stewart and Dennis. Larry
would open for them and then go sit in the back,
and then every night we would go over the note
and so I experienced the developing of a stand up
special in that way.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
You know, that's an important it was important point.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
And for my performance special, I had an HBO half
hour in a group of people with like this. You
had the first round and I was in the second round.
And yeah, so that was my experience. Okay, So he's
asking me questions about the current state of stand up
at that.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Point because he wanted to go back on.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
He was thinking about it. He was, you know, he
wanted to get the info, you know, and you know
with Larry, there's I am enamored of his ability to ponder.
He ponders long beyond the point of uncomfortability for me,
like I'll ponder for a while and then I'll feel
pressure within myself to come up with an answer. He'll
(11:56):
ponder forever. So I didn't know it then, but I
know now this was part of his pondering process. Pondering process.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
It's a pondering process.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
By the ocean with a seashell.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
We'll be right back. Stay junked, and we're back.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
I just want to say a little bit about Larry's
stand up when we used to see him in the
eighties before he did Seinfeld and his stand up and
some of it is in the special with some of
my favorite parts, my favorite bits.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
And by the way, yesterday I was talking with Larry
about those bits, so when they come up, I'll talk.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
About it, okay, because but we all would go in
the room to watch him because his stand up was
so funny.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
By the way, my dream is a comic. I swear
early on, I never thought about specials or anything. I
just wanted comedians to come in when I was on stage.
That was like a big goal.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
It's a great compliment. We would all go to watch,
and part of it was that it was so funny,
and the other part was you never knew what was
going to happen.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
He was so volatile by the way. Either one of
them would have been great to watch him do his stuff,
or watch him go not tonight and walk off.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Correct or something in between, where he'd see he'd be
killing and somebody would look at their watch from the middle.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yes, but that but that includes it falling apart in
some way.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
So he was fascinating to watch, fascinating to watch. So
he was so he wanted to get back on stage
handing about it. And he had never really been what
you would call a successful stand up comic, and I
think that that was something that he wanted.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
And his comedy was pretty much unique to New York.
I don't even know how much stand up I know
he played the store Comedy Store some, but he wasn't
like a road comic to my knowledge. Never although I
met him when he was going to the last year
of Comisky Park in Chicago and he came in. I
was actually performing with Meanie and he can't Kevin.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Meanie, our dear friend who's no longer with us. Oh,
it was the funniest.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Made me cry. Larry showed up I remember with a
Blackhawks jacket. He had this leather, black leather arms, blackhouch chet,
which I thought was so cool. We started talking and
then he was going to like one of the last
games at Comisky Park. He was very excited. That's where
we first met. Okay, so he's asking me all these questions.
I'm telling him what's going down. He's listening, and then
(14:21):
it hit me boom, like it really hit me because
of my John Stewart and Dennis Leary. I go, if
you ever want to do an HBO special, I've got
an idea for a special. We could shoot you developing
a special, and then at the end, even in real time,
(14:42):
based on your decision, we could show a real special
or show you getting out of the special. There's my
contribution everybody, and that we improvise. Those are the two things.
Because that was my idea when we were going to
do it. I said to him, You're not gonna have
to learn lines.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
We'll improvise the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Who does the way, By the way, that's the hardest
thing that an actor does. Director, it's prep actors. It's
learning lines and comedians, it's listening to your set that
night or.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
The next day, because it's it's painful.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
It's painful. It's like going to the dentist. You think
that we're like ego people, like I'm going to listen
to how great I was. And by the way, you're
never as good as you thought you were. When you
listen to those tapes, you see all the flaws. Oh
my god, how did I And even when you kill,
you're like, how did I kill? What was wrong with
those people? So I said that to him, and his
(15:36):
eyes lit up. That's not bad, that's not bad. And
he said, let me go home and think about it.
And he went home and he thought about it, and
I told I want him to tell Marla, my wife
of your who we both love. I love I love
her for obvious reasons. It's weird that my ex wife
(15:56):
is my family, Like, that's right, but I love her
so much. Marla.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
You could love people, and you could share so many
things with them. It doesn't mean that you need to
be living with them and married too.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
By the way, who did I learn that from me? Yes?
And what did I tell Marla over and over to
have her come to terms with us splitting up. I said,
if you think I love you any iota less than
I did, you're wrong. I just feel we can't be married,
and you saved me with that.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
That was the thing.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
By the way, we should also explain this two things.
Number one, at this point we are two days in
on shooting season eleven, twelve twelve. Yeah. By the way,
that's me, that's you. I get things wrong. She gets.
By the way, if we talk about something and we argue,
know that she's right.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
I just want to like to necessarily, by.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
The way, I'm going to say this necessarily maybe okay.
And the other one was, oh, you know, you see
us in a confrontational Actually she's confrontational her character on
the show, and I want to avoid confrontation. So if
you see me confrontational on the show, that's rare. But
in as they say, real life, we couldn't be better friends.
(17:11):
I look at you as like a rock in my life.
You're just fucking solid for me, and we love each
other dearly. So that is kind of.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Fun and it's and it's long, you know'ship's but that's true.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Friends. You gotta disagree. You got to be mad at
You're like fuck them, No, you have to. Now it's
a real, real friendship and so and by the way,
let me also add this, everyone that's on Curb Your Enthusiasm,
the main people that you guys see every week, we
all love each other, yes, dearly, and anytime. We love
to spend time with each other offscreen, which you don't
(17:49):
often see. I've never had a show where there was
a connection between the performers like this show.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
And there's two aspects to that. One is you, when
you're improvising, you have to try people. Yes, very very much,
by the way, very much.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
So you have.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
And we've been doing it for twenty two years at
this point and knew each other from I mean, there's
a long long history here, yes, with all of us.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Yes, No, it's amazing. It's just amazing. You know. I
was looking at JB yesterday and I was just thinking, man,
I love that guy. Yeah, it's interesting to be doing
the history of Curb Your Enthusiasm while we're filming a season.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
That's true. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
So hopefully we get the stuff that they'll still.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Be so season twelve, we're in the middle. We just
started shooting season twelve.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Yeah, and yeah, that's right. Okay, where did I go
up a town?
Speaker 1 (18:38):
So Larry then thought about it.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
I thought about it, and I told Marla about it,
but I told it from the standpoint that I was
going to get to write it with Larry and direct it.
And the next day he called and said I want
to do it, and I'm like, are you kidding me?
This was a huge break for me because I went
to bed thinking this is never gonna happen.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
But it was about his stand up. It wasn't at
this point about the fictitious world.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
The stand up would be real as he's developing it developing,
and if he did a special at the end, that
would be real, but the stuff with all the characters
would be fictitious from the get go. That would not
be real.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Yeah, But was that aspect discussed?
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Is? Oh yeah, numerous times. It's ironic when you consider
who directed it, which we'll get into. But I wanted
mine to be less of the family stuff, less of
the off stage I mean, and more of the on stage,
you know. But it expanded as we were developing it.
And it's ironic because Bob Whitey, who directed this, he's
(19:43):
a documentary domary and I wanted it more that way,
but it wasn't in between. It was like it was
a mock doc with real stand up segments, like there
was never this time.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Just real interviews with real people.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Hold on my and Cheryl's well, Jonna if Cherl was interviewed,
but my interviews were of course fictional.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Cheryl was not interviewed, as I recall, But you and
Cheryl were playing characters when they interviewed Jerry, and those
were real exactly. So Rick Newman, So Rick Newman, who
was on catchising story and.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
By the way, the nicest comedy club. He loved comedians,
he did, and he loved to work for a man
or be around a guy who loves comedians. The only
other person I know who loves comedians George Shapiro. Well, no,
but George Shapiro was does what Lee Curry was a
manager and by the way, George Shapiro, please look him up,
please google George Shapiro. He was one of the great
(20:44):
loves of my life. He was a mentor, he was
a friend, and he might have been you know what,
he might have been the nicest man who ever lived,
I swear to God.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
And he was involved with Seinfeld Seinfeld's manager, and he
was also wasn't he an ep Seinfeld?
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yes, yes, yes, And also he was Andy Kaufman's manager,
which I was more. Jerry Seinfeld isn't a generation before
me as a comedian, Paul Reiser. There's a whole group
of them, and I look up to them and respect them.
But Andy Kaufman, him being Andy Kaufman's manager.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Was like that.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Well that I was just and that was also a
big influence. I wasn't influenced by Jerry Seinfeld. I was
influenced by Andy Kaufman as a human being. Two off
stage of nine.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
So this hybrid thing of some of it is real.
Larry David is playing Larry David, but he's actually not.
Let you know, you're playing Jeff Green.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Yes, but I want to add something here. This is
really this is interesting, I hope Larry and I after
he said yes, either the next day and within the
next day or two, we went to lunch at what
used to be called the news Room on Robertson. I
remember all the restaurants because I remember when we filmed
the show. I can remember most of the restaurants where
we filmed, especially in the early years and we're talking
(22:01):
about the show, and this is where I got like
a bit of a shocker. He said to me, I
don't want you to direct it, and of course when
he said that, my heart said. He goes, no, you're
going to be an executive producer. And I didn't know
that executive producers in television are creative voices.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
I just thought, oh.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
No, but there's like like our managers might be executive
producers and they're not going to be writing the show
week in and out week out, but they're still very helpful.
So I thought, oh, he's going to take my idea
and I'm going to be kicked to the curb. Then
he says to me, oh, I want you to play
my manager, and you're perfect to play my manager. And
I was like really, and he goes yeah. Now at
(22:44):
this point, I didn't know it was going to be
a TV series, so I thought, oh, this will be fun. Cool,
I'll be your manager and I can started thinking about it,
not too hard, but just like thing. And then he
told me he wanted Bob. Why do you to direct it? Based?
He's known Bob for years because we knew it was
going to be a mockumentary.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Based was a documentary document.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Based on Bob's experience. He came in and so did you.
You didn't know him, No, that's how I met him.
And basically it was the three of us that were
the creative voices through the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
How long did it take to shoot?
Speaker 2 (23:22):
We went to New York. Yeah, we shot some in
LA but I think it took a couple of weeks. Well,
with all the stand up, you have to add more.
So what like there'd be a particular week we would
just shoot Larry doing stand up maybe twice in that week,
you know, so and so. And also, by the way,
I want to add one more bonus thing. This is
just to put it out there. Laura used to be
(23:45):
fair to now Striker. I met her when she was
twenty three because she was Larry's assistant. She's a co
executive producer on the show who does great work, amazing,
amazing work, and she's she's essential for the show and
she is the only other person who's there at the beginning. Yeah,
and then Bob stopped working on the show. Yeah, and
(24:06):
Cheryl too, but on an everyday level, it's Laura, myself
and Larry who can say because Cheryl comes sometimes, Bob
Whitey comes sometimes, but we've been through the whole festival.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Yeah, which is quite on you. I mean, we have
you know, some crew people who've been there for all
twelve seasons. It's you know, well.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Yes, but it's a very short list. And it's let
off with Thomas. Yeah, who will be on the show
because he's fascinating and by the way, he's an inspiration
to me in terms of style and how you carry yourself.
I have learned so much from Thomas.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
He's an amazing human being.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Amazing human being. But he didn't do the hour. He
did not do the.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Hour and he didn't That was the whole time on.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
The first season one. This is separate.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
We can we have so much to talk about because
we haven't even gotten to the episode.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Stay tuned. Okay, we're back, So you start doing this.
It was an HBO special to air on.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
HBO and wanted to do stuff with Larry and you.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Pitched it to who Karen Strauss, who was the exact
on this Chris Allbreck, Chris Albreck. Okay, and we went.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Into Chris Allbreck and I swear Chris Albreck said this,
because you go in, you pitch something. Every blue moon,
someone says yes in the room. Most of the time
they say nothing, as Dorothy Parker said, you know, only
in Los Angeles can you die from encouragement. So they
say nothing with a lot of positivity. And then there
was those great executives who I respect, who say no
(25:43):
in the room. So you're not wasting a minute of
your thought breaks and you respect that. Chris Albreck said
these words that I never have experienced and never will again.
How can we not do this?
Speaker 1 (25:55):
There you go, who has ever said that? I said that, yes,
And Chris Albrick. By the way, you know greenlit sopranos a.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Long history at the improv in New York right under understood?
Stand up, knew all the comedians.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Yeah, yeah, So you pitch it, you get your budget,
and you just start.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
And by the way, our offices are. You know, there's
those towers where HBO used to be in Century City,
and if you go to the HBO office, you go
up to them. There's another episode that goes up to
these little suite of offices that nobody's in and there's
no windows and their screening room that was on our floor.
(26:37):
So we're in these little suite, little rooms, little boxes
that we we were in and we're developing it and
developing it. By the way, Larry finished writing it the
outline before we even got there.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Was the outline written in the way that we know
the curb out lines to be. Or was it different?
Speaker 2 (26:56):
It was a little rough, but it was the same.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Let's just take this opportunity for our audience that if
they're Kurk fans, they already know this.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
But by by the way, if they're not Kurk fans,
why are you listening to this? There are so many other.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
But let me just say we do not have a script.
We have an outline, a very detailed outline. Each scene
is about a paragraph. There's no dialogue written, but it's
a it's a very tight outline.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Well it used to be, meaning our outlines were seven pages.
Now they're twenty five pages.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yes, but there's still it's still the same concept.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Well, by the way, the way I keep it real
for myself, I read the outline once and then I
put it in a drawer. So when I go to set,
I just say to Jeff Schaeffer, who directs most of
the and he is the executive another executive producer.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
And he creates the outlines with Larry.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Yes, this, well he has before, but really this season,
I don't think I did it your credit last season, yes,
so it was a tube but before you know anyhow,
I just walk up to Jeff before a scene.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
What's the scene?
Speaker 2 (27:55):
What's the scene? What am I doing? So there's no
lines to learn and that keeps me really fresh in
the moment. So if I had to look at the
outline and then go do the scene, I would see.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
We don't plan anything ahead of time. It's all but
we've both worked with people that you know the pre
planning lines. I don't want to mention.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
I will it's Richard Lewis. Richard Lewis when he comes
into work has index cards, like if we're in a
restaurant and you know the middle where the sugar and
the salt are those things, he'll like set it in there,
and Larry and I will sit on the opposite side
and I'll nod to Larry like yeah, he's got it again,
and then Larry will talk about it. Well, we don't
really rehearse. We just know where the cameras are going
(28:36):
to be.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
And when we block for camera, we don't speak, no
wait until action to actually start in, so.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
We just walk around to see where the cameras. So
as soon as we're start rolling, Larry rips card. I've
seen him do this too many times away from Richard,
who has a look of shock on his face and
then does a great job because you don't want to
prepare it.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
And so the pilot it was the same type of outline.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Yes, Now we're more specific in our discussions after every take,
which are pretty much usually Jeff, myself and Larry. We're
very specific. And Jeff Schaefer, who holds our show together,
totally totally holds our show together. He will let Larry
and know what specifically needs to be covered, so he's
(29:23):
on top of it. He's got the.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Outline whole, he got the whole season in his head.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
We'll look at the outlines over and over and I'll
just go.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
One, what do I look at the outlines? And before
I do a scene, I look at it just so,
and I also like to know what came before and
what's coming after in terms of tone, you know, somebody
screaming and yelling at him in the scene before ways
I don't want to do that.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
But here's this thing. The hour the pilot was shot
in order show it was in sequence. It was all
shot in sequence, which made the line producer he had
fireworks coming out of his head every day from anger
and confusion.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
And we don't do that any longer.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
No, so you knew what was coming next because we're
shut We we shot it, so the only thing that
mattered was what we just shot, because the other things
in the future. So what did we just shoot? Okay,
now we're here. Well, it's obviously it's easier to shoot
in sequence, but financially it's really you can't do that.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Well, we used to shoot a lot more in sequence
than we do more in sequence.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
It was, by the way, I think we even went
into season one and season two.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
More or less. Yeah, yeah, and then it give you
a lesson. It's difficult now, I think because we have
so many guest stars and then it's a schedule, right, No.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Of course, now it's totally different.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
So all right, so what kind of budget did you have?
Did you know, really low, really low.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
I'm guessing to shoot the whole thing if I remember correctly,
maybe half a million, four hundred thousand.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Which is low for an hour.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Well, well you low for not only an hour, but
it's going on HBO. Yeah, so that was our budget.
We also had this is the one time, you know,
how like you know you're right and you're positive that
everybody else is wrong, and then you're proven to be right,
which is rare because you go, oh no, no, they
were right, or there's a in between. This is completely
(31:18):
black and white on myself and the show. So we're
in a development meeting with not only HBO, but all
the tech people, the creatives, all that, and they got
to the camera's part and they started talking about what
the cameras were going to use there, and it was
a Digi Beta, which at that time was a cutting
(31:39):
edge and if you look at it now it looks fine,
but with four K it's horrible. And the other camera
was going to be a High eight, which for people
off the street who were going to a best buy,
that would be the best camera they could buy. But
it's nothing compared to Digi Beta. And I said, what
are we shooting on now? And so I said, we
(32:00):
are going to crosshoot with a Digiti Beta and a
High eight.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Were they going to do the High eight for what
like the standout.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
They were doing the High eight as the other camera.
So so I recently this past week watched it again
and it is. It was glaring to me back then,
but now it's like the High eight stuff is bordering
on unwatchable because it's shining on people's heads. They're washed out.
(32:28):
It's horrible. And then they cut to the use of
the other camera. Everything looks great, You're not questionable. Oh
that was well, I'll tell you it was everyone else
because everyone else told me it'll be fine, It'll be fine,
including the camera. Man. I think that the DP I'm
not positive, but you just said the key thing. I
(32:48):
went to Larry and I begged him after out of
the meeting. I go, you got to make them use
the same camera. It's got to be digi beta. But
our budget, we can't get a second digit beta. So
but he also had no idea what I was talking about.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
And he had come from a multi camera and Seinfeld
was multigam is a completely different animal than single camera.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
And that's also what Fridays was right. And those were
film cameras back then, by the way, they weren't even digital.
Digital was so far from we're shooting this on digital.
We're really early on the whole digital thing. And people
back then laughed at digital like you know, and we said,
we're shooting it in digital, like I'm sorry, you know,
that type of stuff. But it would have looked good
(33:30):
and consistent if we use them both. And it's a nightmare.
My favorite thing. This is the last anecdote about this.
It's also the antidote from me talking. More so, it's
the antidote and the anecdote. So we're in editing early
on first day.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
What does that look?
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Horrible?
Speaker 1 (33:49):
What's going on?
Speaker 2 (33:50):
I said, do you remember the conversation I had with
you about the two cameras? No, well, I begged you
to use Digi beta and one told you it would
be okay. Bob laughed. I remember when Larry was shocked,
But I don't remember Bob's response to initially when they
said did youbate a hyatt? I he might not have
(34:12):
known a lot.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
About that because it was like.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
He would have fought with me for that. So I
don't remember. But anyhow, it was hysterical on editing.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Right now, I would just want to go back to casting.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Yes, oh, casting is another yes, Yes, So the casting
was done by a lovely woman who I knew pretty well,
named Marla Garland. And by the way, she wasn't hired
to cast it because she's my wife. I asked Larry.
She had partnered up at a certain point with Alison Jones,
(34:43):
who's the foremost comedy current casting. Yes, and so Marla
had done casting before, you know, And so it wasn't like,
can my wife do it? I just want to make
sure people listening. If we don't point that out, they're
going to go, oh, that's how it works. Yeah, it
did help that I was her husband, but it didn't
help because Larry doesn't like nepotism from the standpoint he
(35:08):
doesn't want to have to fire someone's daughter, right, you know,
which I understand I wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
So Marla was the casting person. And so who was
cast besides Cheryl?
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Okay, all the other parts yea, all the other parts
were cast. But the thing that was beautiful. First off,
what Larry and I learned because we would do we
cast that we don't cast the way anymore. Now it's
people sit in because of COVID, people's self tape and
then we look at them. But it used to be
people would come in the room to do a scene
(35:38):
with Larry. They're doing it.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
With Larry and.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
So, which is important to see.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
And it's very important because it's a separate skill. Being
a good actor or actress and being able to improvise
her two completely different things. And we'll have Cheryl on
and she'll talk about it herself when he casts Cheryl
because she was such the perfect person.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Oh no, I forgot to finish the first story, which
goes with this. Okay, Larry and I were in shock
at our chemistry. We had never acted together and you.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Weren't even that good friends at that point.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
No, we were friends, but not that great friends. Visual Yeah, Okay,
now that's quite different. He's my brother, you know. But
back then, yeah, but we liked each other anyhow. Yeah,
we're doing these scenes and we had to talk about it,
like what the fuck is going on? Because it was
like as if we had worked together the previous twenty
years as a comedy team. It was like, wow, now
(36:33):
getting to Cheryl. Marla brought in a lot of great people,
people have gone on to some great success, but no
one who came in until Cheryl and post Cheryl.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Cheryl at that time was in the Groundlings, Yes, which
is an improv group, and she was she had not
really done anything. No, she was working as yes.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Working as a nannym. Wait for was it? Yeah that's
I forgot that. Wow. So anyhow she comes in and
it's something about cereal. I don't remember what it was,
the scene the chicken chicken.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
I remember, she's told me it's about something about chicken.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Well, she's wrong, it was it was serial cereal. Yeah,
about the way Larry eats a cereal something along those lines.
No chicken, it was cereal, which is weird in itself.
She was the only one who made Larry nervous. She
was the only one who could keep up with him,
give it to him, no one else. That's one person.
(37:34):
So obviously she was hired. Yeah, that's it, you know,
she really gave it him. And of course in the show,
perfect casting.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
And you and Cheryl are the only holdovers from this.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Yes, as far as act and Larry, Yes, but there
wouldn't be any of their holdovers. Yeah, we were. We
were doing the main part. So I mean, if someone
was a holdover, it's because they were so fantastic. You're like, wow,
they have to be and there were people who were great,
but nothing who would fit in with what we were doing. Okay,
(38:07):
we're done with this first episode and you're keeping this in.
I like shit like this in. I don't like it
out
You can watch the original episode we'll be discussing in
every other episode of HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm, including the
new and final season, on Max. You can also watch
the video version of the History of Curb Your Enthusiasm
podcast on Max and YouTube as well. Links available in
the episode description. What's the show, Jeff, what's the name
(00:28):
of the show.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
The name of the show is the History of Curb
Your Enthusiasm with Susie Esman and Jeff Garland. And she
is Susie Esman. I am Jeff Garland. This is the show.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
This is the show. This is our first episode. Yes,
and we're going to talk about pre the show. Pre
the show was the so called pilot, which was actually
just a special. When it was first meeting, it was
called Larry David Kirby Your Enthusiasm.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Larry David Kirby Your Enthusiasm.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
And I was not in it. So I'm going to
ask you a lot about it.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
Oh, please ask me questions if you want to start
from pre curb where it started, and then all the
way through, I've got, you know, different anecdotes before we
even go into the thing.
Speaker 1 (01:07):
Was this nineteen ninety nine, I believe.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
It might have been starting in ninety eight. I can't remember,
but we shot it for sure in ninety nine.
Speaker 1 (01:15):
Do you know what year Larry left Seinfeld?
Speaker 2 (01:17):
I have no idea.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
Yeah, but he had been out of Seinfeld for a
few years, the.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
Last two years he was not the showrunner.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
Well.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Prior to doing this, yeah, he had done two things
which were not that successful. One was the finale of Seinfeld,
where he took a lot of shit. Yeah, a lot
of shit and it was unfair. And Sour Grapes, which
I can tell you I auditioned for Sour Grapes. Believe
(01:47):
or not, he knows this. I auditioned for Sour Grapes,
the part of a limo driver who gets into a
fight with one of the guys. What have you? That
script from page one on had me laughing. What if
I said, page six on, that's interesting? Page one on.
I was laughing hysterically. Yeah, so hard because I imagined
(02:10):
it and I Larry's writing appeals to me. So when
I saw it, it was disappointing to me because it
wasn't the script. The script was the movie in my head.
And then I saw it and so some things work.
I thought it was well cast. Well, I thought everything
about it was going to do. It just doesn't By
the way, it's so hard to make a movie. It
didn't work. But so he's coming off things that. That's
(02:32):
why I said not too successful, although I imagine although
there are a lot of viewers, but he took a
lot of shit. Yeah, okay, So if you're jumping to
somewhere and I know there's something before that that I
want to talk about, I'll let you know.
Speaker 1 (02:46):
So I just want to get you know, just just
for the record, how this all came about. I know
you and Larry were sharing an office suite, is that correct?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
It was Larry David, Alan's Wybell and Billy Crystal and
was over on Maple at Castle Rock, Castle Rock, And
I was just excited to be near Larry David and
to be near Billy Crystal, and I wanted to say
I was thrilled to write with with Ellen's Ye Bell.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
So where was your career at this point? I mean,
you were doing stand up for many years and you
and I first, let me just say, you and I
first met doing stand up. And that's when I first
met Larry as well at Catchurizing car. Yes, in the eighties,
and we.
Speaker 2 (03:33):
Hit it off right away, right away. We were friends
like boom, and I.
Speaker 1 (03:39):
Had a nickname for you. I called you Smokey.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
You did call me smoky. Do you remember the reason why?
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Oh that's so boy. There wasn't a reason. I just
looked at you and.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
You went smoking.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
You were smoking.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Can you think of a person who's less smoky than
me smoking if I had a cigar all the time.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
I wasn't thinking smoky.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
I remember the smoky Mountains smoke, but.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
I wasn't thinking in terms of smoky like cigarettes or
any or the mountains or Smokey Robinson. I wasn't thinking.
I was just.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Although I do great versions of Smoky Robinson and the Miracles,
i'd never heard that. Naked in the mirror in the morning,
I keep going.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
I don't know. I just looked. It was, you know,
the smoky the bear, you were cuddly, you're going down
the smoky.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
It was, well, there you go. Yes, I'm with you.
Speaker 1 (04:25):
You are lovable. That's what you were. And so I
named you smoky.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Okay, yeah, alright, so go ahead, all right. So so
also I want to add, at that point, I had
been doing parts on TV shows small parts in different sitcoms.
And I had a lot of development deals that had
gone nowhere, okay, where I was under contract for a
year to develop something and it went nowhere.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Which, by the way, I'm just going to say for
the audience is extremely frequent with development, oh very much so.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
But I've been lucky that I got one after another.
I was development deal Johnson.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
I mean you were you were mad about you?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Well, that's what I was about that I was. I
was a recurring I'm mad about you. But I was
on that show a lot, and I was teamed up
with alan'sy Bell to do a compat.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
I don't want to tell people who Alan is for
those who don't know, Alan's Wybell was one of the
original SNL writers and he's a comedy writer and write.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
That's all You're gonna say, Yes, but why Bell co
created It's Gary Shanling.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Yes, he did, yes, and he's a very well known No, he's.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
He's and by the way, done something he wrote on Curb.
He was like an extra writer as your sultant. And
also he was really funny on Curb. He's just one
of the funniest.
Speaker 1 (05:47):
People, very close friends.
Speaker 2 (05:49):
Yes, and by the way. I couldn't love a guy
more except for Lee Kurnis sitting right to the right
of me. Yeah, he doesn't even enjoy that.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
So you're doing a development deal.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
With Yes, for CBS. They want us to create a
show that is a companion show to everybody loves Raymond
and Ellen and I were teamed up, you know, we're
writing whatever, and Larry would come by and we would
talk to both of us, and I would also go
(06:20):
into Larry's office, who had young children the same as mine,
and our bonding came. Now, I already knew Larry from
stand up and I loved him, but our bonding came
on Shirley Temple. Both our kids at that time watched
all the time. They watched the best of Shirley Temple,
(06:42):
all these songs, you know, the Codfish Ball, all that stuff. Yes,
Larry and I knew the words to all of them,
having so I would go in his office and start
singing one and he joined me. So it was really fun.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
So Shirley Temple brought you together. And see I never
knew no.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
But there's also and irony that I'll bring up in
a second. So also when Larry would come to our office.
We'd tell him how we were doing and my favorite thing.
One of the main people actors we wanted for our
show was Adam West in a key role. Is my boss.
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Adam West who played Batman.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Batman, who I do an impression of, Hello, Susie, how
are you so help me? If the Joker, Riddler and
the Penguin come near you, I will have to get
Chief O'Hara. All right, anyhow, thank you. So Larry comes
in and the first thing he first joke he said,
(07:38):
is we're working on this. We told him our idea
for Adam West, and Larry goes, eh, I think you
can get him. That was my worst Larry impression I've
ever done. I do a good one. I do this
one stylized impression. Anyhow, one day this is I'm getting
to the core now, Okay. One day Larry came in
(07:59):
and asked Allan and I to go to lunch. Alan
did not want it, couldn't go. Not you didn't want to,
you know, it couldn't go. So Larry and I went
to lunch at the Cuckaroo across the street from Natan Nels.
I remember distinctly the Cuckaroo. He and I are sitting
in the back and he's asking me a lot of
(08:19):
questions about stand up.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Now I have a question for you, yes, because my
timeline is off. When I met Larry in nineteen eighty
five doing stand up, you aren't around yet. Then in
New York, I came up a bit after that, So
had were you around in the days when he was
hanging out the most?
Speaker 2 (08:35):
Definitely the one I saw him do was look at
the audience, look around at the very beginning, go not tonight.
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Yeah. I witnessed one where he looked at the audience
said I don't think so that before that.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Yeah, yes, Well, by the way, there's a boundary that
like it's I believe it's eighty six when I moved
to New York. I'm pretty sure. Okay, okay, so shortly, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
And when we met Larry, he was a stand up comic.
That's where he was.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
He was a stand up comic. No hold on.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
He had done Friday. He had done.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Fridays, which I used to love, but primarily I loved
him and Michael Richards and Larry used to do these
pro wrestlers who do this and it was just a
He was hilarious on that show. Everything he did and
his look, so he was someone I looked up to.
When I met him, I'm like, wow, Larry David.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Yeah. And you know what else I remember from those days.
I remember once I did a new bit or something
and he was in the room watching me, and somebody
told me it was Scott Carter actually told me afterwards
Larry thought that new bit you did was really funny.
And I remember feeling like you always wanted Larry to
think you were funny. There was a respect level there.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
But by the way, the idea that I have Larry
David's number, that I say things that he thinks they're
hilarious all the time, that he laughs hard from the
stud but bullshit that I say, the non secuit is
the nonsense, Oh you're a loser. But the point is
that to have his number every single time he laughs
(10:10):
hard at me, I'm like, this is the coolest.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
Yes, there's just something about it.
Speaker 2 (10:14):
So I just want to add that's where my career was.
But something I had done previous to this moment, this
is the key thing. I had helped develop John Stewart's
Unlevined and Dennis Larry's Lock and Load.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
So those were stand up.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Specials for Dennis Leary and John Stewart, two guys I
was friends with, and I used to think that I
was the co director, But as I thought about it,
you don't direct stand up, you know, and the other
person directs the cameras. So what I really was, even
though I got a credit on one as director and
one is point being is I was a I developed it.
(10:52):
I was a consultant, but i'd really hands on development.
I went on tour with John Stewart and Dennis. Larry
would open for them and then go sit in the back,
and then every night we would go over the note
and so I experienced the developing of a stand up
special in that way.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
You know, that's an important it was important point.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
And for my performance special, I had an HBO half
hour in a group of people with like this. You
had the first round and I was in the second round.
And yeah, so that was my experience. Okay, So he's
asking me questions about the current state of stand up
at that.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Point because he wanted to go back on.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
He was thinking about it. He was, you know, he
wanted to get the info, you know, and you know
with Larry, there's I am enamored of his ability to ponder.
He ponders long beyond the point of uncomfortability for me,
like I'll ponder for a while and then I'll feel
pressure within myself to come up with an answer. He'll
(11:56):
ponder forever. So I didn't know it then, but I
know now this was part of his pondering process. Pondering process.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
It's a pondering process.
Speaker 2 (12:04):
By the ocean with a seashell.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
We'll be right back. Stay junked, and we're back.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
I just want to say a little bit about Larry's
stand up when we used to see him in the
eighties before he did Seinfeld and his stand up and
some of it is in the special with some of
my favorite parts, my favorite bits.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
And by the way, yesterday I was talking with Larry
about those bits, so when they come up, I'll talk.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
About it, okay, because but we all would go in
the room to watch him because his stand up was
so funny.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
By the way, my dream is a comic. I swear
early on, I never thought about specials or anything. I
just wanted comedians to come in when I was on stage.
That was like a big goal.
Speaker 1 (12:57):
It's a great compliment. We would all go to watch,
and part of it was that it was so funny,
and the other part was you never knew what was
going to happen.
Speaker 2 (13:04):
He was so volatile by the way. Either one of
them would have been great to watch him do his stuff,
or watch him go not tonight and walk off.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
Correct or something in between, where he'd see he'd be
killing and somebody would look at their watch from the middle.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yes, but that but that includes it falling apart in
some way.
Speaker 1 (13:22):
So he was fascinating to watch, fascinating to watch. So
he was so he wanted to get back on stage
handing about it. And he had never really been what
you would call a successful stand up comic, and I
think that that was something that he wanted.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
And his comedy was pretty much unique to New York.
I don't even know how much stand up I know
he played the store Comedy Store some, but he wasn't
like a road comic to my knowledge. Never although I
met him when he was going to the last year
of Comisky Park in Chicago and he came in. I
was actually performing with Meanie and he can't Kevin.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
Meanie, our dear friend who's no longer with us. Oh,
it was the funniest.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
Made me cry. Larry showed up I remember with a
Blackhawks jacket. He had this leather, black leather arms, blackhouch chet,
which I thought was so cool. We started talking and
then he was going to like one of the last
games at Comisky Park. He was very excited. That's where
we first met. Okay, so he's asking me all these questions.
I'm telling him what's going down. He's listening, and then
(14:21):
it hit me boom, like it really hit me because
of my John Stewart and Dennis Leary. I go, if
you ever want to do an HBO special, I've got
an idea for a special. We could shoot you developing
a special, and then at the end, even in real time,
(14:42):
based on your decision, we could show a real special
or show you getting out of the special. There's my
contribution everybody, and that we improvise. Those are the two things.
Because that was my idea when we were going to
do it. I said to him, You're not gonna have
to learn lines.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
We'll improvise the whole thing.
Speaker 2 (15:00):
Who does the way, By the way, that's the hardest
thing that an actor does. Director, it's prep actors. It's
learning lines and comedians, it's listening to your set that
night or.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
The next day, because it's it's painful.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
It's painful. It's like going to the dentist. You think
that we're like ego people, like I'm going to listen
to how great I was. And by the way, you're
never as good as you thought you were. When you
listen to those tapes, you see all the flaws. Oh
my god, how did I And even when you kill,
you're like, how did I kill? What was wrong with
those people? So I said that to him, and his
(15:36):
eyes lit up. That's not bad, that's not bad. And
he said, let me go home and think about it.
And he went home and he thought about it, and
I told I want him to tell Marla, my wife
of your who we both love. I love I love
her for obvious reasons. It's weird that my ex wife
(15:56):
is my family, Like, that's right, but I love her
so much. Marla.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
You could love people, and you could share so many
things with them. It doesn't mean that you need to
be living with them and married too.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
By the way, who did I learn that from me? Yes?
And what did I tell Marla over and over to
have her come to terms with us splitting up. I said,
if you think I love you any iota less than
I did, you're wrong. I just feel we can't be married,
and you saved me with that.
Speaker 1 (16:29):
That was the thing.
Speaker 2 (16:30):
By the way, we should also explain this two things.
Number one, at this point we are two days in
on shooting season eleven, twelve twelve. Yeah. By the way,
that's me, that's you. I get things wrong. She gets.
By the way, if we talk about something and we argue,
know that she's right.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
I just want to like to necessarily, by.
Speaker 2 (16:49):
The way, I'm going to say this necessarily maybe okay.
And the other one was, oh, you know, you see
us in a confrontational Actually she's confrontational her character on
the show, and I want to avoid confrontation. So if
you see me confrontational on the show, that's rare. But
in as they say, real life, we couldn't be better friends.
(17:11):
I look at you as like a rock in my life.
You're just fucking solid for me, and we love each
other dearly. So that is kind of.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
Fun and it's and it's long, you know'ship's but that's true.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Friends. You gotta disagree. You got to be mad at
You're like fuck them, No, you have to. Now it's
a real, real friendship and so and by the way,
let me also add this, everyone that's on Curb Your Enthusiasm,
the main people that you guys see every week, we
all love each other, yes, dearly, and anytime. We love
to spend time with each other offscreen, which you don't
(17:49):
often see. I've never had a show where there was
a connection between the performers like this show.
Speaker 1 (17:55):
And there's two aspects to that. One is you, when
you're improvising, you have to try people. Yes, very very much,
by the way, very much.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
So you have.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
And we've been doing it for twenty two years at
this point and knew each other from I mean, there's
a long long history here, yes, with all of us.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Yes, No, it's amazing. It's just amazing. You know. I
was looking at JB yesterday and I was just thinking, man,
I love that guy. Yeah, it's interesting to be doing
the history of Curb Your Enthusiasm while we're filming a season.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
That's true. Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2 (18:27):
So hopefully we get the stuff that they'll still.
Speaker 1 (18:29):
Be so season twelve, we're in the middle. We just
started shooting season twelve.
Speaker 2 (18:33):
Yeah, and yeah, that's right. Okay, where did I go
up a town?
Speaker 1 (18:38):
So Larry then thought about it.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
I thought about it, and I told Marla about it,
but I told it from the standpoint that I was
going to get to write it with Larry and direct it.
And the next day he called and said I want
to do it, and I'm like, are you kidding me?
This was a huge break for me because I went
to bed thinking this is never gonna happen.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
But it was about his stand up. It wasn't at
this point about the fictitious world.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
The stand up would be real as he's developing it developing,
and if he did a special at the end, that
would be real, but the stuff with all the characters
would be fictitious from the get go. That would not
be real.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Yeah, But was that aspect discussed?
Speaker 2 (19:21):
Is? Oh yeah, numerous times. It's ironic when you consider
who directed it, which we'll get into. But I wanted
mine to be less of the family stuff, less of
the off stage I mean, and more of the on stage,
you know. But it expanded as we were developing it.
And it's ironic because Bob Whitey, who directed this, he's
(19:43):
a documentary domary and I wanted it more that way,
but it wasn't in between. It was like it was
a mock doc with real stand up segments, like there
was never this time.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Just real interviews with real people.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
Hold on my and Cheryl's well, Jonna if Cherl was interviewed,
but my interviews were of course fictional.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Cheryl was not interviewed, as I recall, But you and
Cheryl were playing characters when they interviewed Jerry, and those
were real exactly. So Rick Newman, So Rick Newman, who
was on catchising story and.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
By the way, the nicest comedy club. He loved comedians,
he did, and he loved to work for a man
or be around a guy who loves comedians. The only
other person I know who loves comedians George Shapiro. Well, no,
but George Shapiro was does what Lee Curry was a
manager and by the way, George Shapiro, please look him up,
please google George Shapiro. He was one of the great
(20:44):
loves of my life. He was a mentor, he was
a friend, and he might have been you know what,
he might have been the nicest man who ever lived,
I swear to God.
Speaker 1 (20:54):
And he was involved with Seinfeld Seinfeld's manager, and he
was also wasn't he an ep Seinfeld?
Speaker 2 (21:00):
Yes, yes, yes, And also he was Andy Kaufman's manager,
which I was more. Jerry Seinfeld isn't a generation before
me as a comedian, Paul Reiser. There's a whole group
of them, and I look up to them and respect them.
But Andy Kaufman, him being Andy Kaufman's manager.
Speaker 1 (21:17):
Was like that.
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Well that I was just and that was also a
big influence. I wasn't influenced by Jerry Seinfeld. I was
influenced by Andy Kaufman as a human being. Two off
stage of nine.
Speaker 1 (21:30):
So this hybrid thing of some of it is real.
Larry David is playing Larry David, but he's actually not.
Let you know, you're playing Jeff Green.
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Yes, but I want to add something here. This is
really this is interesting, I hope Larry and I after
he said yes, either the next day and within the
next day or two, we went to lunch at what
used to be called the news Room on Robertson. I
remember all the restaurants because I remember when we filmed
the show. I can remember most of the restaurants where
we filmed, especially in the early years and we're talking
(22:01):
about the show, and this is where I got like
a bit of a shocker. He said to me, I
don't want you to direct it, and of course when
he said that, my heart said. He goes, no, you're
going to be an executive producer. And I didn't know
that executive producers in television are creative voices.
Speaker 1 (22:19):
I just thought, oh.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
No, but there's like like our managers might be executive
producers and they're not going to be writing the show
week in and out week out, but they're still very helpful.
So I thought, oh, he's going to take my idea
and I'm going to be kicked to the curb. Then
he says to me, oh, I want you to play
my manager, and you're perfect to play my manager. And
I was like really, and he goes yeah. Now at
(22:44):
this point, I didn't know it was going to be
a TV series, so I thought, oh, this will be fun. Cool,
I'll be your manager and I can started thinking about it,
not too hard, but just like thing. And then he
told me he wanted Bob. Why do you to direct it? Based?
He's known Bob for years because we knew it was
going to be a mockumentary.
Speaker 1 (23:02):
Based was a documentary document.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
Based on Bob's experience. He came in and so did you.
You didn't know him, No, that's how I met him.
And basically it was the three of us that were
the creative voices through the whole thing.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
How long did it take to shoot?
Speaker 2 (23:22):
We went to New York. Yeah, we shot some in
LA but I think it took a couple of weeks. Well,
with all the stand up, you have to add more.
So what like there'd be a particular week we would
just shoot Larry doing stand up maybe twice in that week,
you know, so and so. And also, by the way,
I want to add one more bonus thing. This is
just to put it out there. Laura used to be
(23:45):
fair to now Striker. I met her when she was
twenty three because she was Larry's assistant. She's a co
executive producer on the show who does great work, amazing,
amazing work, and she's she's essential for the show and
she is the only other person who's there at the beginning. Yeah,
and then Bob stopped working on the show. Yeah, and
(24:06):
Cheryl too, but on an everyday level, it's Laura, myself
and Larry who can say because Cheryl comes sometimes, Bob
Whitey comes sometimes, but we've been through the whole festival.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
Yeah, which is quite on you. I mean, we have
you know, some crew people who've been there for all
twelve seasons. It's you know, well.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
Yes, but it's a very short list. And it's let
off with Thomas. Yeah, who will be on the show
because he's fascinating and by the way, he's an inspiration
to me in terms of style and how you carry yourself.
I have learned so much from Thomas.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
He's an amazing human being.
Speaker 2 (24:43):
Amazing human being. But he didn't do the hour. He
did not do the.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Hour and he didn't That was the whole time on.
Speaker 2 (24:49):
The first season one. This is separate.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
We can we have so much to talk about because
we haven't even gotten to the episode.
Speaker 3 (24:55):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 1 (24:56):
Stay tuned. Okay, we're back, So you start doing this.
It was an HBO special to air on.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
HBO and wanted to do stuff with Larry and you.
Speaker 1 (25:14):
Pitched it to who Karen Strauss, who was the exact
on this Chris Allbreck, Chris Albreck. Okay, and we went.
Speaker 2 (25:20):
Into Chris Allbreck and I swear Chris Albreck said this,
because you go in, you pitch something. Every blue moon,
someone says yes in the room. Most of the time
they say nothing, as Dorothy Parker said, you know, only
in Los Angeles can you die from encouragement. So they
say nothing with a lot of positivity. And then there
was those great executives who I respect, who say no
(25:43):
in the room. So you're not wasting a minute of
your thought breaks and you respect that. Chris Albreck said
these words that I never have experienced and never will again.
How can we not do this?
Speaker 1 (25:55):
There you go, who has ever said that? I said that, yes,
And Chris Albrick. By the way, you know greenlit sopranos a.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
Long history at the improv in New York right under understood?
Stand up, knew all the comedians.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
Yeah, yeah, So you pitch it, you get your budget,
and you just start.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
And by the way, our offices are. You know, there's
those towers where HBO used to be in Century City,
and if you go to the HBO office, you go
up to them. There's another episode that goes up to
these little suite of offices that nobody's in and there's
no windows and their screening room that was on our floor.
(26:37):
So we're in these little suite, little rooms, little boxes
that we we were in and we're developing it and
developing it. By the way, Larry finished writing it the
outline before we even got there.
Speaker 1 (26:51):
Was the outline written in the way that we know
the curb out lines to be. Or was it different?
Speaker 2 (26:56):
It was a little rough, but it was the same.
Speaker 1 (26:59):
Let's just take this opportunity for our audience that if
they're Kurk fans, they already know this.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
But by by the way, if they're not Kurk fans,
why are you listening to this? There are so many other.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
But let me just say we do not have a script.
We have an outline, a very detailed outline. Each scene
is about a paragraph. There's no dialogue written, but it's
a it's a very tight outline.
Speaker 2 (27:20):
Well it used to be, meaning our outlines were seven pages.
Now they're twenty five pages.
Speaker 1 (27:25):
Yes, but there's still it's still the same concept.
Speaker 2 (27:27):
Well, by the way, the way I keep it real
for myself, I read the outline once and then I
put it in a drawer. So when I go to set,
I just say to Jeff Schaeffer, who directs most of
the and he is the executive another executive producer.
Speaker 1 (27:41):
And he creates the outlines with Larry.
Speaker 2 (27:43):
Yes, this, well he has before, but really this season,
I don't think I did it your credit last season, yes,
so it was a tube but before you know anyhow,
I just walk up to Jeff before a scene.
Speaker 1 (27:55):
What's the scene?
Speaker 2 (27:55):
What's the scene? What am I doing? So there's no
lines to learn and that keeps me really fresh in
the moment. So if I had to look at the
outline and then go do the scene, I would see.
Speaker 1 (28:05):
We don't plan anything ahead of time. It's all but
we've both worked with people that you know the pre
planning lines. I don't want to mention.
Speaker 2 (28:14):
I will it's Richard Lewis. Richard Lewis when he comes
into work has index cards, like if we're in a
restaurant and you know the middle where the sugar and
the salt are those things, he'll like set it in there,
and Larry and I will sit on the opposite side
and I'll nod to Larry like yeah, he's got it again,
and then Larry will talk about it. Well, we don't
really rehearse. We just know where the cameras are going
(28:36):
to be.
Speaker 1 (28:36):
And when we block for camera, we don't speak, no
wait until action to actually start in, so.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
We just walk around to see where the cameras. So
as soon as we're start rolling, Larry rips card. I've
seen him do this too many times away from Richard,
who has a look of shock on his face and
then does a great job because you don't want to
prepare it.
Speaker 1 (28:58):
And so the pilot it was the same type of outline.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
Yes, Now we're more specific in our discussions after every take,
which are pretty much usually Jeff, myself and Larry. We're
very specific. And Jeff Schaefer, who holds our show together,
totally totally holds our show together. He will let Larry
and know what specifically needs to be covered, so he's
(29:23):
on top of it. He's got the.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Outline whole, he got the whole season in his head.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
We'll look at the outlines over and over and I'll
just go.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
One, what do I look at the outlines? And before
I do a scene, I look at it just so,
and I also like to know what came before and
what's coming after in terms of tone, you know, somebody
screaming and yelling at him in the scene before ways
I don't want to do that.
Speaker 2 (29:44):
But here's this thing. The hour the pilot was shot
in order show it was in sequence. It was all
shot in sequence, which made the line producer he had
fireworks coming out of his head every day from anger
and confusion.
Speaker 1 (30:02):
And we don't do that any longer.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
No, so you knew what was coming next because we're
shut We we shot it, so the only thing that
mattered was what we just shot, because the other things
in the future. So what did we just shoot? Okay,
now we're here. Well, it's obviously it's easier to shoot
in sequence, but financially it's really you can't do that.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
Well, we used to shoot a lot more in sequence
than we do more in sequence.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
It was, by the way, I think we even went
into season one and season two.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
More or less. Yeah, yeah, and then it give you
a lesson. It's difficult now, I think because we have
so many guest stars and then it's a schedule, right, No.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
Of course, now it's totally different.
Speaker 1 (30:42):
So all right, so what kind of budget did you have?
Did you know, really low, really low.
Speaker 2 (30:47):
I'm guessing to shoot the whole thing if I remember correctly,
maybe half a million, four hundred thousand.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
Which is low for an hour.
Speaker 2 (30:55):
Well, well you low for not only an hour, but
it's going on HBO. Yeah, so that was our budget.
We also had this is the one time, you know,
how like you know you're right and you're positive that
everybody else is wrong, and then you're proven to be right,
which is rare because you go, oh no, no, they
were right, or there's a in between. This is completely
(31:18):
black and white on myself and the show. So we're
in a development meeting with not only HBO, but all
the tech people, the creatives, all that, and they got
to the camera's part and they started talking about what
the cameras were going to use there, and it was
a Digi Beta, which at that time was a cutting
(31:39):
edge and if you look at it now it looks fine,
but with four K it's horrible. And the other camera
was going to be a High eight, which for people
off the street who were going to a best buy,
that would be the best camera they could buy. But
it's nothing compared to Digi Beta. And I said, what
are we shooting on now? And so I said, we
(32:00):
are going to crosshoot with a Digiti Beta and a
High eight.
Speaker 1 (32:03):
Were they going to do the High eight for what
like the standout.
Speaker 2 (32:07):
They were doing the High eight as the other camera.
So so I recently this past week watched it again
and it is. It was glaring to me back then,
but now it's like the High eight stuff is bordering
on unwatchable because it's shining on people's heads. They're washed out.
(32:28):
It's horrible. And then they cut to the use of
the other camera. Everything looks great, You're not questionable. Oh
that was well, I'll tell you it was everyone else
because everyone else told me it'll be fine, It'll be fine,
including the camera. Man. I think that the DP I'm
not positive, but you just said the key thing. I
(32:48):
went to Larry and I begged him after out of
the meeting. I go, you got to make them use
the same camera. It's got to be digi beta. But
our budget, we can't get a second digit beta. So
but he also had no idea what I was talking about.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
And he had come from a multi camera and Seinfeld
was multigam is a completely different animal than single camera.
Speaker 2 (33:09):
And that's also what Fridays was right. And those were
film cameras back then, by the way, they weren't even digital.
Digital was so far from we're shooting this on digital.
We're really early on the whole digital thing. And people
back then laughed at digital like you know, and we said,
we're shooting it in digital, like I'm sorry, you know,
that type of stuff. But it would have looked good
(33:30):
and consistent if we use them both. And it's a nightmare.
My favorite thing. This is the last anecdote about this.
It's also the antidote from me talking. More so, it's
the antidote and the anecdote. So we're in editing early
on first day.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
What does that look?
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Horrible?
Speaker 1 (33:49):
What's going on?
Speaker 2 (33:50):
I said, do you remember the conversation I had with
you about the two cameras? No, well, I begged you
to use Digi beta and one told you it would
be okay. Bob laughed. I remember when Larry was shocked,
But I don't remember Bob's response to initially when they
said did youbate a hyatt? I he might not have
(34:12):
known a lot.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
About that because it was like.
Speaker 2 (34:15):
He would have fought with me for that. So I
don't remember. But anyhow, it was hysterical on editing.
Speaker 1 (34:21):
Right now, I would just want to go back to casting.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Yes, oh, casting is another yes, Yes, So the casting
was done by a lovely woman who I knew pretty well,
named Marla Garland. And by the way, she wasn't hired
to cast it because she's my wife. I asked Larry.
She had partnered up at a certain point with Alison Jones,
(34:43):
who's the foremost comedy current casting. Yes, and so Marla
had done casting before, you know, And so it wasn't like,
can my wife do it? I just want to make
sure people listening. If we don't point that out, they're
going to go, oh, that's how it works. Yeah, it
did help that I was her husband, but it didn't
help because Larry doesn't like nepotism from the standpoint he
(35:08):
doesn't want to have to fire someone's daughter, right, you know,
which I understand I wouldn't.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
So Marla was the casting person. And so who was
cast besides Cheryl?
Speaker 2 (35:18):
Okay, all the other parts yea, all the other parts
were cast. But the thing that was beautiful. First off,
what Larry and I learned because we would do we
cast that we don't cast the way anymore. Now it's
people sit in because of COVID, people's self tape and
then we look at them. But it used to be
people would come in the room to do a scene
(35:38):
with Larry. They're doing it.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
With Larry and.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
So, which is important to see.
Speaker 1 (35:45):
And it's very important because it's a separate skill. Being
a good actor or actress and being able to improvise
her two completely different things. And we'll have Cheryl on
and she'll talk about it herself when he casts Cheryl
because she was such the perfect person.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
Oh no, I forgot to finish the first story, which
goes with this. Okay, Larry and I were in shock
at our chemistry. We had never acted together and you.
Speaker 1 (36:08):
Weren't even that good friends at that point.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
No, we were friends, but not that great friends. Visual Yeah, Okay,
now that's quite different. He's my brother, you know. But
back then, yeah, but we liked each other anyhow. Yeah,
we're doing these scenes and we had to talk about it,
like what the fuck is going on? Because it was
like as if we had worked together the previous twenty
years as a comedy team. It was like, wow, now
(36:33):
getting to Cheryl. Marla brought in a lot of great people,
people have gone on to some great success, but no
one who came in until Cheryl and post Cheryl.
Speaker 1 (36:46):
Cheryl at that time was in the Groundlings, Yes, which
is an improv group, and she was she had not
really done anything. No, she was working as yes.
Speaker 2 (36:57):
Working as a nannym. Wait for was it? Yeah that's
I forgot that. Wow. So anyhow she comes in and
it's something about cereal. I don't remember what it was,
the scene the chicken chicken.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
I remember, she's told me it's about something about chicken.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
Well, she's wrong, it was it was serial cereal. Yeah,
about the way Larry eats a cereal something along those lines.
No chicken, it was cereal, which is weird in itself.
She was the only one who made Larry nervous. She
was the only one who could keep up with him,
give it to him, no one else. That's one person.
(37:34):
So obviously she was hired. Yeah, that's it, you know,
she really gave it him. And of course in the show,
perfect casting.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
And you and Cheryl are the only holdovers from this.
Speaker 2 (37:45):
Yes, as far as act and Larry, Yes, but there
wouldn't be any of their holdovers. Yeah, we were. We
were doing the main part. So I mean, if someone
was a holdover, it's because they were so fantastic. You're like, wow,
they have to be and there were people who were great,
but nothing who would fit in with what we were doing. Okay,
(38:07):
we're done with this first episode and you're keeping this in.
I like shit like this in. I don't like it
out
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