LARRY DAVID IS a sweetheart. The real Larry, that is, not the misanthropic version at the centre of Curb Your Enthusiasm, now in its 12th and final season. While that character of Larry is a genius of social disruption, the actual Larry, speaking to Empire over Zoom from his office in Los Angeles, is disarmingly relaxed and affable, sitting in front of book-shelves full of memorabilia, including a Seinfeld clapperboard. This writer/creator Larry puts his fictional counterpart through some extraordinary extremes in this swansong season, even by Curb standards. “I enjoy anything that I find funny,” says David, explaining his raison d’être. “I love yelling at people. I love people yelling at me. Nothing makes me laugh harder than people cursing me. I can’t get through scenes when people call me a ‘fucking asshole’ and all that. So, I’m pretty much game to do anything if it makes me laugh.”
Proof of that yelling-and-cursing love comes in a standout moment in this season’s opener, when Larry gets furious with Siri. “Oh, yeah, well, that happened,” David confirms. “I think it was on a Sunday. And it happened in my car. I was in a hurry. And then I came into work the next day when we were shooting and I said to Jeff Schaffer, our director, ‘Hey, we gotta do this thing that happened yesterday. We’ve got to film this.’ And so we filmed it the next day. And then we liked it so much, we decided to put it in show one.” So, real Larry got so angry that he called Siri a “fucking cunt”? “Yes, yes, I did,” he nods proudly.
King of comedy: Larry David is back being awkward