The 2021 edition of October, unquestionably the finest of the months, is an especially stacked affair. Among the highlights, of course, is the impending arrival of new Curb Your Enthusiasm. In anticipation of the reliably great comedy’s return, star and creator Larry David stopped by Jimmy Kimmel Live for an interview that could have easily been expanded into a full episode of Curb on its own.
Near the top of the discussion, David went deep on the mistreatment often reserved for the intentionally posture-averse.
“May I slouch?” he asked the host. “I’m a sloucher. Can I slouch? I like to slouch. It’s not a crime. Is it a crime to slouch? People look down on slouchers. I don’t know why. You’re not allowed to slouch, you’re not allowed.”
Kimmel interjected to say that a person can slouch all they want if they’ve “made something” of themselves, but David still disagreed. “I don’t think so,” David said. “I think slouching is so frowned upon. You walk into a house, you see slouchers, you wanna leave immediately.”
David and Kimmel then turned the conversation toward the act of canceling plans, something David said he “flirted with” doing prior to the interview. This prompted Kimmel to reflect on a dinner invitation he extended to David, only for David to show up on the wrong day.
“He invited me for dinner, this guy,” David said. “I don’t really know him that well. I don’t know why you would invite me because leaving my house requires talking and listening, you know. Listening, not my forte. Honestly, I can have conversations with people for half an hour and they can tell me their wife just died and I won’t even know it.”
When David showed up at Kimmel’s house, nobody was home. David texted Kimmel, who wrote back that he was at a funeral and reminded him the dinner was actually set for the following Monday. “Holy shit,” David texted back, adding that this mixup would make for a great bit the next time he was on the show.
Deeper into the interview, Kimmel showed the audience a clip of the new Curb season in which David is heard asking Richard Lewis “When are you gonna die?” Following the clip, David spoke on his and Lewis’ close friendship, and how that closeness facilitates jokes like this.
“He’s the only person in the world I could say that line to, the only person in the world,” David said. “Our friendship is so strong and it goes back so far that I could say, he’s one of those guys. I could say anything I want to him and vice versa.” As for whether Lewis is the holder of David’s “best friend” title, David declined to say, reminding Kimmel that such a question is a “stupid” one for a late-night host to ask a guest.
“You know, I have other best friends and those other best friends are gonna get very insulted but he’s definitely, definitely very, very best friend-y,” David said. “But I don’t wanna insult the other best friends, you know. And by the way, that’s a dumb question for a host to ask. Stupid question.”
Speaking more on Curb, particularly the fact that production was handled amid a global pandemic, David—who “didn’t see one person’s face all year”—shared a hilarious anecdote about telling the cast and crew to take off their masks on the last day of shooting while they were all outside together.
“So they all took ‘em off, I look [and go] ‘Okay, put ‘em back on,” he said.
Nearer the end of the interview, just before the 13-minute mark, David was asked about the New York Fashion Week video in which he was seen covering his ears. The video was previously addressed by his daughter Cazzie David, who called it a “disturbing” clip.
“It was very noisy,” David recalled. “Let me explain how I wound up there, okay. My friend. … His fiancée is a great fashion designer. Her name is Staud. She’s a wonderful gal. And he said to me that my presence would be helpful. ‘I want you to go, your presence would be helpful.’ I said my presence has never been helpful anywhere. Wherever I am is wrong. Everything is better if I’m not there.”
Ultimately, of course, David decided to attend.
“It’s a little out of place,” he added. “It’s like Steve Bannon at a Seder. It doesn’t really work. So it was very loud music and that’s why I was covering my ears.”
Though I did indeed just write nearly 800 words about David’s Kimmel appearance, the full thing is still very much worth your time. Catch it up top. Curb Your Enthusiasm, meanwhile, returns via HBO on Oct. 24. Below, get a look at the slate of guest stars set to make assuredly hilarious appearances:
