The William S. Paley Television Festival, a yearly event sponsored by the Museum of Television & Radio at the Director’s Guild in Hollywood, features a series of screenings and panel discussions with the cast and crew of TV’s hottest shows past and present. This year, the festival includes discussions with the writers, producers and performers from current hits such as Scrubs, Alias, HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm and Six Feet Under and classics including St. Elsewhere.
Lovers of Larry David‘s hit HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm did anything but that Mar. 5 at the Director’s Guild panel discussion featuring the show’s players.
To the several hundred fans packing the house, it must have seemed surreal. On the show, David ostensibly plays himself, an acerbic, put-upon television writer/producer–not much of a stretch, considering David was (with Jerry Seinfeld) the co-creator of the hit NBC series Seinfeld as well as the inspiration for the George Costanza character.
Thus at times the discussion felt like some kind of live version of his current series. From the moment he walked onstage, in his trademark casual, loose-fitting clothes, David, 54, blurred the line between fact and fiction–right down to the gray sneakers he was wearing, which he confirmed were the same ones featured in an episode last season.
“I’ve got to get a new bio,” he said right after his introduction, a joke that would have been forgettable coming from anyone else. But the self-deprecating lilt to his voice was all too familiar, sparking laughter in the audience. Here at last was someone who is pretty much exactly like the character he plays on TV
If you’ve never seen Curb, think Seinfeld meets The Larry Sanders Show. David’s life is presented in a sort of documentary style–most episodes center around him, his manager Jeff (played by Jeff Garlin) and his wife Cheryl (played by Cheryl Hines).
Despite the show’s lean feel, the plots mirror the complexity of Seinfeld episodes such as the now classic 1993 “The Contest,” for which David won an Emmy.
Curb‘s characters find themselves embroiled in everyday-turned-bizarro situations such as the one in “The Doll” (the episode screened before the discussion), in which David finds himself scrambling to replace a little girl’s doll after he cuts its hair at her request. Another plot line follows his exasperation when he’s told not to bring a bottle of water into a theater by someone he thinks is an employee, only to discover she’s just another moviegoer.
David shared the stage with Hines, Garlin and producer Robert Weide, who described how Curb grew out of David’s desire to return to his stand-up comedy roots after so many years as a writer and producer. It was Garlin who suggested that David film his exploits.
David was reluctant at first (“What, are they going to come shopping with me?”), and it wasn’t until he hit upon the notion of making the show a kind of fake documentary that
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the idea took off. With the rationale that a real documentarian would be great at making the show look authentic, David approached producer Weide, who had made documentaries about Lenny Bruce and Billy Crystal.
In addition to his real-life role as the show’s executive producer, Garlin, who has had several small roles in features and television, took on the role of David’s showbiz manager.
Hines’ background in improvisational comedy helps her effectively react to the constantly wisecracking David. This is, after all, a guy who tends to make a big deal out of the little things in life (In one episode, he goes on about whether he’s obligated to stop and talk to a friend, or just say hello and keep on walking).
David comes up with each show idea himself and instead of a script, he hands over a seven- or eight-page outline to the cast. Then it’s up to the actors–even the bit players–to come up with the details of each scene.
“It’s not really acting, the way most actors act,” he said. “I wouldn’t enjoy acting from a script. I would be always thinking, ‘When do I go? When do I go?’ I wouldn’t be able to pay attention to the other actors, because I would be saying, “When do I talk? When is it my turn?'”
But performing isn’t entirely new to him. After starting out as a stand-up comic, he had small roles in Woody Allen‘s Radio Days and New York Stories. And he had a number of bit parts and walk-ons on Seinfeld, although perhaps his most notable on-screen contribution on that show is his least known: providing the voice for Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, seen only from the back (and played by a different actor).
Naturally, some questions veered toward Seinfeld. David remains close to the show, as Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Jason Alexander have both made appearances on Curb, playing themselves as actors trying to move on while dealing with the specter of the show which made them famous.
David was asked what he thought of what the press has called “the Seinfeld curse,” since both Alexander and actor Michael Richards‘ first solo efforts were canceled after very short runs. (The jury’s still out on Louis-Dreyfus’ new sitcom, Watching Ellie.)
“I feel bad for the people they’re writing about, because it’s idiotic,” David said. “It’s very hard to make a successful sitcom.”
But, as Davis and his cohorts have proven, not impossible.
