TRANSCRIPT
- "Curb" is the postmodern sitcom.
I mean, I don't even know what it is, it's a hybrid.
The interesting thing about "Curb" is that it became this thing by accident, in a way.
You know, like Larry says that the reason it's improvised is he didn't wanna learn lines, so then it became this whole other form, and I think that most art is that, that it's just an accident.
It's just a happy accident that's building on things.
I mean, you know, his sense of story from years and years of doing "Seinfeld" and doing all those great scripts, that built upon this other idea that he didn't wanna learn lines and suddenly it's like, boom, this whole thing blows up together and it becomes this brilliant little gem that I love doing so much.
Larry doesn't let any of the guest stars read the outlines.
We have an outline, we don't have a script.
The dialogue is all improvised.
The outline is details of what each scene is about and one of the reasons he doesn't like the guest stars to read the outlines is because he doesn't want them thinking up lines the night before, like funny lines, like sitcom funny lines how people don't really talk.
We're just characters and we improvise it so we're just interacting, we're just talking and listening, which is what really good acting is, and just interacting and it's not some witty line that some writer wrote.
That doesn't make me laugh.
The real character comedy makes me laugh.
People ask me all the time about my character and how we developed it.
Larry and I never discussed my character.
She just kind of organically developed.
There was one scene in the very first season where Jeff has a Fresh Air Fund kid live with us, and the kid robs us blind, and that was a scene Larry had in mind when he hired me because in his direction was, "I want you to rip Jeff a new one."
So he wanted somebody who could curse and get angry really easily, but that was the only character thing that he ever told me to do, is just to yell and scream and curse at Jeff.
Beyond that, the crazy way she dresses, and so many of her traits just kind of evolved and we've never ever discussed it.
I don't think Larry ever discussed character with Cheryl, with Jeff.
It's just not how we work.
I put on those wacky Susie Greene outfits and I become her and it's very, it's hard to say which comes first, but the wardrobe really helps me be the character, and she's a real character.
I mean, people think I'm Susie Greene, I'm not.
I sometimes wish I was Susie Greene 'cause she's so reactive.
You do something to her, she responds and she's got very simplistic rules that she lives by and she doesn't analyze everything every which way, I mean, I'm a comedian.
I analyze everything.
People think that what they're responding to and what they think is funny in Susie Greene is her cursing, but I think it's her comfort with her anger.
I think her comfort with her anger is such a relief to people that, and I know this just from people coming up to me on the street all the time, telling me, "You're exactly like my wife."
Which I'm always like, "Eh."
Or, "You remind me of myself."
And I think that I'm giving permission to people to be angry and I think it's a good thing.
There was an article in New York Times recently about couples.
The women who act out their anger at their husbands are some percentage, some ridiculous percentage, like 80% less likely to die young than the women who hold it in.
"Curve" to me always felt like "The Honeymooners."
Larry and Jeff are always having schemes and it's just a much higher socioeconomic level "Honeymooners."
Larry and Jeff are always having schemes and plots and always getting themselves into trouble and they never learn.
None of us ever learn.
We've done six seasons.
Our characters have not changed one iota.
Maybe last season 'cause Cheryl actually left Larry, but basically we never learn from our mistakes, we're the exact same, and that's the comedy of it.
It's not funny when you learn and grow.
It's funny to keep making the same mistakes over and over and that was Ralph and Norton.
They just did the same things over and over and it was two couples, which I always think "Curb" is at its funniest when it's the four of us, when it's the two couples.
There's something about that dynamic and the fact that as angry as I get at him, which is frequent, next scene, I forgive him.
I give him a chance all over again.
Susie Greene is definitely the (bleeps) detector of Larry.
She's the one that will call him out no matter what.
Totally, my character's completely unimpressed with him.
I don't care that he was the creator of "Seinfeld."
I don't care about any of that.
To me, he's just my fat (bleeps) husband's stupid friend, you know, and I will call him out on anything.
I catch them at whatever they do.
Whatever they're gonna do, you know I'm gonna catch them.
And I think that I'm his, I would say nemesis.
Yeah, nemesis.
- That's true.
- Chew him out.
- It is absolutely true.
He ruins all my takes.
Larry, I think, you know, is a masochist because he just loves when I yell at him.
He ruins all my best takes.
The minute I start cursing, before I even open my mouth and he knows I'm gonna yell at him, he gets the giggles, so I don't know, maybe I represent his third grade teacher or somebody, but he gets like a little kid with the uncontrollable giggles every time I yell and scream at him.
He makes me laugh.
Not so much, I mean, I generally, when I'm in a scene, I generally, I put on those wacky outfits, I get into character.
If I have to be angry, I have to work on it a little bit and really get my anger going 'cause I don't wanna act angry, I wanna be angry, you know, it's an acting thing.
But his laughter makes me laugh 'cause Larry has the most joyous laugh, so making Larry laugh is one of the greatest pleasures of my life, even though he ruins all my good takes and I have to do it over and over and over again, and then I lose my voice.
The character Larry plays on "Curb," I think, is Larry's it.
I think it's what he's thinking, but he knows better than to say it, but I think the real Larry thinks all those things, just doesn't say them.
I mean, you have to consider, he ran the most successful show in the history of television.
He was the Executive Producer of "Seinfeld."
You have to be a diplomat.
You got people working for you, you have a huge staff.
You have egos that you're dealing with, so he knew better.
He's smarter than to say all the jerky things that Larry on "Curb" says, however, I think, and he's told this to me, he aspires to be that character.
I first knew Larry at Catch a Rising Star in the mid-'80s and he was a comedian's comedian.
All the comedians thought he was the funniest thing, but he would have little idiosyncrasies with the audience.
Everybody would be laughing but one person and then he couldn't stand it, or he would do things like walk on stage, look at the audience and say, "Nevermind," and just walk off.
Or when I would MC, I would introduce him and we'd have that point where we crossed and as we were crossing, he would say to me, "Stay close," 'cause you never knew when he was just gonna walk off.
Once I remember he had some joke about a bungalow and someone in the audience didn't know what a bungalow was and this infuriated him and he stormed off.
I don't know that nice is funny.
I mean, Larry on the show is, a lot of it is just circumstance that he just shoots himself in the foot all the time, but most of it is stuff that he creates.
It's not just generally stuff being done to him.
What I love about Larry's character is he's so politically incorrect.
He does not subscribe to the social mores that the rest of us subscribe to and I love that about him.
I love that he's, you know, my character's the opposite.
I have rules, I have very, very strict rules about how you behave and what you're supposed to do, but Larry is pointing out how ridiculous it is that you can't accept a wedding gift if it comes after a year.
A gift is a gift.
He's pointing out all those ridiculous ways that we behave and I think that that's what comedy is.
I think comedy is a commentary on our society and it's not just accepting the status quo, it's saying, "This is ridiculous."
Larry's genius, I think, is really in story.
I mean, he's brilliantly funny.
He was a brilliantly funny standup before years and years ago when I knew him at Catch a Rising Star in the '80s, in the mid-'80s, but I think his real genius is story and I think it is genius.
I don't use that word lightly.
I get the outlines for the show in the beginning of the season and I read them and I have a comedy brain and I have no idea how he got there.
It's transcendent.
It's just the way that he knows how to put a story together is not like anybody else.
Nobody else could imitate his story style.
It's like Mozart.
How did he hear that melody?
Nobody else could really hear what he heard and I think the same's true with Larry.
(gentle music)
