It was a pretty good run...prettAYYY, prettAYYYYY, prettAYYY, pretty good.
But the end is near for “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and Larry David – well, at least for the fictionalized, irreverent, alter-ego version of himself who says what we're all thinking.
Or is it? Cue Larry David’s interrogation stare-down and theme music.
David has insisted that the show’s 12th season, which premieres Sunday on HBO and Max, will be the last in a run that has spanned 24 years. Some who work closest with him have doubts, if only because the 76-year-old David has an endless source of material generated from the most basic of human interactions.
As long as people can find Larry David, Larry David might find 'Curb.'
“I just don’t believe that Larry is never going to have another interaction with a human being,” Jeff Schaffer, the executive producer of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and former “Seinfeld” writer told NBC on Thursday. “I mean, do you think he’s never going to have another awkward encounter?”
Those encounters turn into ideas, the ideas are written in notebooks, the notebooks are stored in Larry David’s desk drawer. And the drawer gets opened when the social assassin needs some ammunition.
In David’s office, this is called a “Google search.”
Schaffer discussed that process, along with the future of “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” the possibility of a “Seinfeld” reboot, and all things Larry David during a stop-and-chat just days before the premiere of the supposed final season.
What was the creative process like while coming up with this final story arc for Larry and the show?
“The way the Curb creative process works is that we start from a place of absolute surety that we’re not doing a season. So, Larry’s like, ‘We’re not gonna do another season. If we did do another season, I only have this one idea, but it’s not worth talking about.’ ‘Well, you want to talk about it?’ ‘No, it’s not worth it.’ And then we start to talk about it, and then we start throwing ideas around. And then episodes get written and eventually when we get to around show six or seven I say we should tell HBO we’re gonna do another season so we can get the cast and the crew together.
"Larry is absolutely dead set on never doing a season unless he totally thinks and believes it’s going to be great. So, you end up writing like the first half of the season on spec because he’s totally willing to throw it in the garbage at any moment.
“This season, like every season, we started talking about what could a season arc be… Once we have a season arc, we followed that sort of 10-episode story. And when we were in the middle of it, we realized that this story, where it was going to end up, the funniest version of it would be if this was the final season. We never set out going, ‘Oh this is the final season.’ The story sort of took us there and it’s just the funniest version of the season if it is actually the final one.”
Why do you have doubt that this is the final season? Larry seems adamant.
“I just don’t believe that Larry is never going to have another interaction with a human being. I mean, do you think he’s never going to have another awkward encounter? I don’t. I don’t think Larry is done interacting with people on the West side of Los Angeles. The question will just be, what shape do those stories take? He’s not just going to put himself in a box and put himself in the closet. We’re still in the office showing our awkward scars and talking about funny things. So, I don’t know what will happen from that, but I’m not really concerned because this is the way it always happens.
“I love this season. There are a few old friends that come back, which are great. Auntie Rae. Takahashi. Tracy Ulman is back as Irma. We get to see Keyla as Maria Sofia. Vince Vaughn is back for some episodes and he’s just amazing. There are some people that we’ve always wanted to work with that we’ve never gotten to have on the show who are amazing this season.
"Steve Buscemi. Sienna Miller. Greg Kinnear. Some awesome people and then a few really big surprises that I would love to tell you but Larry would literally come through the internet and strangle me. He doesn’t like spoilers at all. You know how like you got to bed and your face is clear and then you wake up the next day and you have a pimple. And you’re like what is that, how did that even happen. That’s how he wants the show to appear. He just wants it to be a pimple on the face of television that just showed up in the night.”
Can you give us a tease of what to expect this season?
“It’s a really, really fun season of ‘Curb.’ Some of my favorite scenes we’ve ever shot, that I’ve laughed the hardest at shooting and I’m still laughing at watching, are in this season.”
“Curb” has already had season finales that seemed like very fitting endings for the show. How satisfied are you with what could be the official ending of the show?
“We’ve had a lot of practice ending the show because we’ve ended the series every season. Yes, the final episode of Season 5 was called ‘The End.’ That was not an ironic title. Season 9 [Larry] is being chased by a guy because he’s got a Fatwa on him. Last season, we shot an empty pool that he could have drowned in. Every season, when we’re shooting that final episode, I in my head am thinking, ‘This may be the last ‘Curb’ ever.’ So, we’re like a cat with nine neurotic lives, and I think we just got to the ninth.”
Larry has said he got a lot of grief over the ‘Seinfeld’ finale because "a lot of people intensely disliked it." So, why do you think he revealed this would be the final season of "Curb" and now recreated these high expectations for another series finale of a beloved show?
“Here’s the thing about a finale of a show that people have invested in and have been watching, some people for 24 years. It’s a long relationship. It’s probably one of the longest relationship some people have ever had. So, when a relationship ends, it’s always a little messy, right? Like, ‘You’re leaving me? ‘No, no, no, you can’t leave!’ It’s like, ‘Man, we left a long time ago.’ I walked out for seven years, says Curb to the audience. I don’t know why you think we’re going to be here forever. ...
"Like every season, we wanted to write a funny season. Like every episode, we wanted to write a funny episode. The reason why this is the finale is because these stories are funniest if it’s the finale."
Jerry Seinfeld was recently asked about the "Seinfeld" finale, and he hinted that he and Larry are going to be doing something about the ending. Is there any chance of a reboot of some kind?
“I have no inside information. I would just say that ‘Seinfeld’ reunion season that we already did, that’s the reunion. And it was an amazing seven-layer dip of nostalgia and meta-comedy and really funny scenes. That’s one of my favorite seasons of ‘Curb.’ It was a real mind bender.”
“People are always asking me about the Seinfeld reunion and all that kind of stuff and it’s like, ‘We did one!’ We did one in Season 7 and it was great. And the reason why it was great is because it was a reunion for the right reason, which was a comedy reason. And it served a selfish purpose for Larry because he wanted to get back with Cheryl. It was the right way to do something like that because it was embedded in an actual story.”
"Seinfeld" is still as relevant as ever, how do you think "Curb" will withstand the test of time?
"I always say funny things are like cockroaches, they’re really hard to kill. I think 'Curb' is a really hearty comedy cockroach...Just like 'Seinfeld,' its relatable."
Favorite episode of "Curb"?
“The ‘Seinfeld’ reunion, end of Season 7.
Favorite scene from "Curb"?
“From this season, there’s a scene with Larry and Vince Vaughn that is one of the funniest scenes that we’ve ever shot.”
Favorite guest appearance on "Curb"?
“I couldn’t list just one, but Lin-Manuel Miranda playing a funhouse passive aggressive version of himself was amazing, Bill Hader coming in and playing three different roles last season was so funny and incredible, and I’d also have to say Tracy Ullman coming in like she was built in a lab to make Larry uncomfortable. Just a genius move.”
What’s something we'd be surprised to learn about Larry?
“One of Larry’s best qualities that totally goes under the radar, and a lot of people just don’t know, his best quality is that he knows how to get off the phone quickly. We’ll be talking and he just goes, ‘OK.’ and he hangs up. There’s no ‘I’ll see you later. We need to make another plan.’ He knows how to end communication, and I admire it.”
You’ve worked with Larry as closely as anyone, what is that partnership like?
“I’ve been working with him on and off for I guess almost 30 years, since 1994. But it’s great. I mean, we sit in a room and we talk about stories, we go on the set, we make them and then we sit in a room and edit. So, I spend all my time with him. He was the one at ‘Seinfeld’ who taught me how to edit and really to structure a show, and even sound mixing, all that stuff. Now it’s like we can finish each other’s sentences and we can just reference something and know what that move is. But I will say for as long as I worked with him - and he says, ‘Oh, you know all my moves’ - literally every day on set he still surprises me.”
How different is the real Larry David and TV Larry David when the cameras are off?
“The show is all about wish fulfilment. Real Larry is the neurotic Clark Kent to TV Larry’s Superman. TV Larry gets to do all the things real Larry wishes he can do. That’s why he said, ‘I’m doing the show because it’s more fun to play Larry David than it is to be Larry David.’
“If real Larry did all the things TV Larry did, real Larry would be in jail. And that’s how the show gets written. He’ll come into the office and say, ‘Ugh, I went to this dinner party last night and the hostess served tap water. Who serves tap water at a dinner party? I should have said something.’ And I’ll go, ‘Well, real Larry didn’t say anything, but TV Larry is gonna say something.’ And that’s the start of a scene.”
Can you explain what the term “Google search” means in the behind-the-scenes world of ‘Curb’?
“A lot of times a great story isn’t a great story, it’s a great scene. And you’re like, ‘Well, where does it go? How does it connect to these other stories?’ Sometimes we’re missing something. Like in ‘Palestinian Chicken,’ they’re all at a dinner and we need something for Suzie. And we had something, but it was flat. And so we say, ‘Let’s do a Google search.’
Doing a ‘Google search’ has nothing to do with a computer. It means Larry opening a drawer, pulling out these giant spiral notebooks where all of his ideas are written down and leafing through it. So, we’ll both just sort of be scanning through ideas that we’ve never put in the show. You’re looking for a puzzle piece that fits this puzzle piece. Because there’s some stories that we’ve tried in like five episodes and they’ve never worked until finally we figured out the other piece to go with it.”
“There’s a scene this year that we’ve shot twice before in two different seasons and it never worked right. It was always funny, but it didn’t fit the episode. We’ve literally shot it and cut it twice, and finally this year we shot it for the third time and it works perfectly.”
So, if Larry still has all these puzzle pieces and no puzzle, all these ideas and no show to use as an outlet, what happens to Larry David?
“Well, that’s the thing. It's like tectonic plates pounding against each other. Eventually there’s going to be an earthquake. I’m sure there’s still another earthquake left in Larry.”
