‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ EP on Emmy Noms, That ‘Seinfeld’ Themed Finale & Honoring Richard Lewis

Curb Your Enthusiasm is going out with a celebration as the HBO comedy earned four Emmy nominations, including one for Outstanding Comedy Series and another for star Larry David in the category Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series.

Following the nomination announcements, TV Insider caught up with executive producer, writer, and director Jeff Schaffer, who is opening up about being nominated for the show’s final season, why poking fun at the Seinfeld finale in the show’s last episode worked, and paying homage to star Richard Lewis, who died when the final season was still airing. See what Schaffer had to share, below, and stay tuned to see how Curb fares at the Emmys when they air this September.

HBO

Are these nominations extra special considering it’s the end? Or is it? Technically the show ended years ago and made a comeback…

Jeff Schaffer: First of all, your point is valid. Yeah, we cannot be trusted. I mean, at the end of Season 5, the final show was called “The End” and it wasn’t ironic, and here we are finishing up Season 12 telling everyone it’s the end, but this one feels different because of the way we ended it. And honestly, that story is why we ended it. We kept telling everyone it was the finale, so we sort of painted ourselves into a corner there. And in terms of the nomination, I’m really happy that people were happy with how the season ended.

It’s really hard to end a show and it’s such a long relationship. I mean, this might be the longest relationship some of our fans have ever had. So when a show ends, it’s tricky. We like to eventize things in this country, so it put a lot of pressure on it and I’m very happy that we landed the plane in a satisfying way. I’m really happy that our audience and our fans were happy, that Larry was happy, that Jerry [Seinfeld] was happy. So that’s the thing that meant the most to me. The nomination is icing on the cake.

Is it funny being acknowledged in this way considering the finale poked fun at Seinfeld‘s decisive finale?

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That’s the thing. When we thought of it, I was like, we can’t lose, we’re owning it. We’re literally going to steer the Titanic right back at the iceberg. But we’re saying we’re doing it. And that’s why the [finale] ended up being ambitious in its laziness and unique in its repetition. But what I love the most about it is that it ends not just Curb, but it touches back to Seinfeld. It’s really more about Larry than even about the show. It hit that other thing of Larry going like, “You didn’t like it? I’m doing it again. This is who I am. Tough. Just eat it.” And I think people really got that. It was very satisfying to see people get what we were doing and enjoy it.

Does this feel like a special way to honor Richard Lewis, who died as the final season was airing?

I mean, we lost Bob [Einstein] a few seasons ago and we lost Richard this year, but we did a few reshoots while the show was actually airing because we couldn’t [during] the strike and he was there for those and he looked great and it was great. So he got to finish everything. He got to do this one little pickup we needed, and I’m so happy that he got to see it all the way through. It was really important to him to make it. Being in the show meant a lot to him. It meant a lot to Larry, it meant a lot to us, but it meant a lot to him, too. So it’s great that he got to play it all the way through, which is really special. And he’ll get to live forever as Larry’s neurotic foil.

Curb Your Enthusiasm, Streaming Now, Max