Susie Essman
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I'd be at the produce section in Fairway or Zabar's and somebody would shove a phone in my face and say, it's my husband, call him a fat fuck, you know, that kind of thing. Welcome back to Where Everybody Knows Your Name. On today's episode, I'm joined by one of the stars of Curb Your Enthusiasm, actor and comedian Susie Essman. On Curb, she played Susie Green, the wife of Larry's agent, Jeff Green.

Now, if you're like me, you loved Susie's character for her no BS ways. She's foul-mouthed, wears outrageous clothes, and isn't scared to go toe-to-toe with Larry. Even though Susie Essman is obviously her own person, her character's fearlessness somehow reminds me of her own. How she navigated the male-dominated world of stand-up by being even more raunchy and unfiltered than her peers. I can't wait for you to get to know her better. And now you will.

Meet Suzy Espin. Hi, Suzy. Hi, Ted. I haven't seen you in months. I know. March something, 24th or something. Something like that. Our last day. Yeah. Oh, wow. Hard. Very hard. You know what I love about this? I love that I get to talk to you for an hour or whatever it is. And

Larry's not going to interrupt us. It's just going to be you and me because... Just you and me. No Jeff coming in. No Larry annoying us. Larry doesn't annoy on set because he's too focused. Yeah, that's true. I'll tell you, I have a whole category talking with you about how annoying is it to work with Larry David.

We could start with this. We both had similar reactions. Somebody asked you in some interview, do you break up? Do you laugh a lot on the set? No. No. We're professionals. We're professionals. Yeah. Exactly. He falls.

every single take of mine, all of my best takes. Literally, because first time he giggles, you go, oh, sweet. He likes what I'm doing. And then he does ruin your next 10 takes because he won't stop giggling.

And then for me, you know, many of my takes, I'm screaming and yelling. So by the time he stops giggling, my voice is gone. You know, he's a pain in the ass. He's a pain in the ass. But I will say this, making Larry laugh, I think is truly, and I'm not being, you know, Pollyanna-ish. It's one of the joys of my life is making him laugh. Mine too. And luckily I make him laugh. Otherwise I wouldn't have had this job all these years.

Good point. And here's something else about Larry. First off, obviously, we love him, adore him. I would say that both of our careers have a lot to do with him. Well, Ted, mine's certainly yours. I mean, come on. No, we can get into that. But he came along, Curb came along at a time where I literally, I think I had done a podcast

a show that lasted, you know, eight episodes and then was canceled. And I sat there looking at myself going, all right, I'm not making, I'm not amused by what I'm doing anymore. I don't have a giggle. And all right, no more comedy. I'm going to just do movies and da-da-da-da.

And then along came Larry with his bizarre invitation out of the blue to come, you know. And it was like it rehabilitated me. It did? Really? Yeah, really. I never knew that. Yeah. Tell that story about the first time he showed you the stuff at Martha's Vineyard. Yes, I love this. I think that's so funny. Okay.

Okay, so I think we'd met him, he and Laurie, the year before, and they were friends. And you both had houses in the vineyard, right? He was renting a house. He and Laurie were renting a house, and it didn't have great reception. So after some dinner, he told this group of about six, eight of us that, come over to the house and let me show you a cutting or whatever of the pilot that I'm thinking of doing for HBO.

And we all climbed up to the top of the stairs near the attic because it was the only place that had good enough reception or whatever, Wi-Fi, to be able to watch it. And it was hot. And several of the people literally fell asleep, you know, sitting on the stairs watching this. And I remember thinking, oh, boy, boy, this is, I don't know, I don't think this is going to work. But I like him so much.

What do we say? As you plan, you know, how to be complimentary with something you're not thinking. And at the end. We've all been there. Yeah. Mary and I kind of were looking at each other and going, I shouldn't pull Mary into it. This was my reaction. But we both said, Larry, wonderful. If you ever want us to play ourselves, we'd be happy to. What an amazing thing. And, you know, went out the door and thought nothing of it. And then we got a call.

And he said, come, come play yourselves. And that was back in the day when you brought your own wardrobe and pretty much put your makeup on in your car before you, you know, walk on the set. People don't understand how low budget we were in the beginning. We had no trailers. We didn't have a makeup trailer. We had nothing. We didn't even have Porto Sans.

Port-a-potty things. Go to the bathroom before you come, Susie. Right. Right. Right. And we had one makeup artist who did hair and makeup for everybody, barely. Yeah. Yeah. No, it was amazing. And then... It was really like, I got a barn, let's put on a show. Yes. You know, that's what it felt like. Yes. And you'd get the call if you were a guest star the night before.

You know, so there was no planning ahead with Larry. Right. And he just made the assumption everyone would want to come, and he was right. He was right. And then I think for your character, I mean, I love the evolution of you becoming pretty much starting out as his friend and then becoming the cad. Right. Which...

Which I didn't know because I didn't even read those little outlines that we get. I think most people know that Larry and whoever he's writing with that season work on it for three months, but they take it right up to the point where they would normally write dialogue and then they don't.

So we get these little outlines that you can read or not. And I didn't even read the outlines. You just show up and you say, you walk here, you did it. And this is kind of the situation. And one time, one season...

You know, we're going to be, you're not doing this podcast. So this is the last question for me. Okay. I will finish this story. But I was walking. The scene was he was talking and I'm blanking on the actress's name from Australia. Lucy Lawless. Yes. Lucy and Larry are standing on a corner in Brentwood outside of a dry cleaner. And I, they're talking.

And I pull up as far as I know, get out of the car, walk by them and go, hey, and into the dry cleaner. Well, one take, I got there too early. So they were still finishing their little dialogue that they were having. And what I overhear is, oh, God, yeah, what an asshole. Oh, I know. He's horrible.

And I heard it, you know, it was like, wait, what? And I kept walking. And then I went up to Jeff, uh, later and went, Jeff, did you, did you hear what they said? He went, really? You don't know that you are the asshole this season. That's all you are the whole season for Larry. Yeah. It's great that you didn't know that because that, you know, then you're not playing asshole. You're just playing, you know, well, you never want to be on point on anything.

Yes, that's true. That's true. All right, let me go back. One more question I want to ask you, and then you can ask me. See, this is deflecting, but go ahead. No, no, no. Just one question because I never asked you this. Were you upset when he had you splitting up with Mary and getting together with Cheryl? So much so that I'm going to have to couch in this conversation we're having how upset I was.

Really? Yes. It was a very vulnerable time. I think it was the week after Trump won the election. Yeah. 2016, I guess, was it? And so I'm feeling very disoriented and vulnerable. And I show up to work to discover that, you know,

We have divorced, Mary and I, or we're getting a divorce or something. Yeah. Which I understand why story-wise they did it, I think. But it hurt. And I came back and had to tell Mary, like, this was a thing in our life, not just a story point. Yeah. And we got people when it was aired, people who were friends with,

or at least acquaintances that we'd had dinner with, you know, a month before, would write these notes to us. Oh, is it true? I'm so sorry. You know, it was like, what? Yeah, Mary used to say, yeah, we did. And we decided to tell the world on the Larry David show, on Curb. Yeah, exactly. That seemed the appropriate way to tell. But it did upset me. But there you go. It's funny.

Well, you know, because there's such, I mean, you're Ted Danson, but you're not really Ted Danson. You're Ted Danson on the show. And Larry David's Larry David. I'm Susie, but I'm Susie Green. And Richard, you know what I mean? It's all very confusing. It is. But I realized I'm not Ted Danson. I am function.

My job, I think probably most of us, our function is to drive Larry into a corner so he explodes and comes out more Larry. That's kind of what your job is. But that's show Larry. That's not real Larry. No. Although it's not, for me, going out to dinner with Larry used to be the same. I would try to find some funny way to insult him and then delight if he laughed. One last thing about laughter, then we're going to go back. And Larry. And Larry.

Not all stand-ups are generous with their laughter. A lot of them, you know, I got the football. Let me run. Just let me do my thing. And they don't throw the football back. Larry delights in you being funny. He really does. Yeah.

He really does. He's one of my favorite people in the whole world. So don't get me started on him. All right. We both love Larry. We both love to insult him. Well, at least I do. No, I do too. All right. Then we're going to go back. We're kind of working in the middle here towards the end, and we'll work back. But...

I read that Larry saw you doing the Jerry Stiller roast when you got up and were part of there and saw you and went, oh, that's who I want to play suit. That's exactly true. Well, I had known him. I met him maybe 1985 at Catch a Rising Star when we were both doing stand-up. And, you know, he was legendarily famous.

I don't want to say it was a bad standup. His material was brilliant, but he didn't, he was not one that knew how to relate to an audience particularly well, you know? And we used to all come in the room and watch him because he was explosive. He would just, if so, if one, if he was killing, but one woman looked at her watch, he would start screaming and yelling and storm off the stage, you know? And he would do things like what,

I was there one night when he, this is a legendary story, when he looked at the audience, he got on stage, looked at the audience and said, I don't think so, and just walked out. Or when I used to emcee a lot of Catch, there's always that moment where you introduce somebody and then you cross paths. I would say, ladies and gentlemen, Larry David, and then I would walk off and he would walk on and he would always whisper in my ear, stay close.

because he knew that he was just going to storm off. You know, he had like a 20-minute spot or a 15-minute spot. So if you were the emcee, you had to stay in the room, because that was usually when you went to the bathroom or went out and got a soda or whatever. With him, you had to stay in the room, because he never knew when he was just going to storm off the stage. So it wasn't a bit. Let me just ask this. This was real. It was not him doing a bit. I'm the storm-off guy. It's real. Go on. No, no. It was real. He would get... One night, I remember it was like

I don't know, two o'clock in the morning and he was doing some bit and there was something about a bungalow and a woman in the audience asked, what's a bungalow? And he went crazy on her that she didn't know what a bungalow was and he stormed off. It was always, we always watched him because it was such...

For comedians, it was so much fun to watch him. And there are certain comedians that die hilariously. You know, it's always painful to watch a comedian not do well. But Larry did it hilariously. And it was just a joy to watch. So I had known him from way back then. And then he moved to L.A. And I stayed in New York and I hadn't seen him. And...

And I was struggling. I was, this, this was like 1999. Uh, and I was, I was, had gotten to be a really good comic and I just, nothing was happening in my career. I mean, a little bit of this, a little bit of that, you know, that kind of a thing. And, uh, I was making a living doing standup and I was just very, very frustrated. And they, the Friars Club asked me to do the, the roast and,

Because I had kind of made my bones with them because you had to in those days. It was all these old starkers, your Alan Kings and all these guys that didn't think women were funny, especially if you were halfway decent looking. They couldn't imagine. They were very confused because they didn't know if they wanted to laugh at you or fuck you. You know what I mean? It was that generation, you know? Am I laughing too hard? They asked me to do this roast and Comedy Central didn't want me to do the roast because I was...

not what their demographic was. I don't know why. Too female, too old, too Jewish, whatever it was. And the Friars Club fought for me to do that roast because I had made my bones with them. And I remember I had laryngitis.

I was so nervous doing that roast that I lost my voice and I was on steroids and I was sitting next to Danny Aiello at the dais and he wouldn't shut up and I didn't want to talk and he kept on talking to me. You know, Danny was like, oh God, he was so funny. And I did the roast and I was filthy because that's what you have to be. You have to be really blue on a roast. And I was a relatively blue comic anyway. And Larry saw it.

and had this idea for the...

First season, it was an episode called The Wire where he wanted Jeff's wife to just, the direction he gave me was rip him a new asshole. And so he saw me and he was like, oh, Susie, it was like a light bulb. She'd be perfect. So he called me up and he gave me the part and I didn't know anything about it. I remember he said to me, I said, well, what's the part? Don't worry about it. You could do it. I said, well, send me a script. There's no script. And then he told me, but there's no money. You're going to have to fly yourself out and put yourself up. And I'm like,

I don't mind working for day scale, but it's not going to cost me. So find some money and fly me out. And they eventually flew me out coach and put me up in some fleabag place in Venice. And I was just a day... I was getting day scale for the first...

I don't know, three seasons. I had no contract, nothing. And I never knew from season to season if I was going to be in it. We never knew if he was going to come back. After every season, he would say, that's it, I'm not coming back. But I never knew that I was going to be in it. But he kept me in it, thankfully. Hey, but I read that little thing, that note about you, Larry, casting you, wanting you because of that roast. And so I went and watched it last night.

So for you to say that, you know, it's confusing for a woman who's funny and half decent looking, you were hot, if it's okay to say that. Thank you, Ted. No, really astounding. And you were brilliant because it is confusing.

probably for that group of men too. That generation. To see someone very beautiful, very sexy, rip them a new asshole and make fun of their manhood left and right. It was truly brilliant. It was a great, great performance. One time, Alan King, he was hosting something at a hotel in Atlantic City, a show, and he had me on it and he was the emcee. And this is how he introduced me. He said, you know, in my day,

All the women who were funny, they were funny. There was something wrong with them. Martha Ray had a big mouth. Phyllis Diller dressed in crazy outfits. But this broad is pretty and funny. Please welcome Susie Essman. That's how he introduced me. This broad. Broad, yes. Yeah. Yeah. Times have changed. Hershey's milk chocolate with whole almonds. Oh.

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How old were you when you went, oh, maybe this is something I want to do? Because that wasn't in your family. It was a very creative family. It was very... Yes, you went to college with my cousin, as a matter of fact. Remember we discussed that? Michael Pressman. Oh, that's right. Yes. That's right. So wait, a cousin, but related how to you and your family? He's my second cousin. His father was my grandfather's brother. So he was really my mother's cousin. Gotcha. Yeah.

Yeah. My mother's first cousin, but the ages were, you know, he was closer and he's five years older than me. So, yeah. Okay. So there you are in this creative family, but you're not thinking, or are you, about New York or, I mean, performing? You know, from when I was a little girl, all I wanted to be was an actress. And somehow...

I had this idea and I was deeply insecure and no support whatsoever. Nobody ever told me anything good. I just had this idea that I had this talent. And I remember in first grade when they were doing a play and they gave me some little parts

And I didn't get Mrs. Claus. It was, I wanted to get Mrs. Claus, Santa and Mrs. Claus. They gave it to my friend, Lisa, who I'm still friends with. And I remember thinking, what a bunch of idiots they are that they don't see that I'm like a great talent. And they're just giving me these shit little parts. You know, I thought that I was like, how did they not recognize my ability? And then when I was about eight,

I was in camp and we did The Wizard of Oz as a play. Because, you know, all Jewish kids go away to sleep away camp. That's what we do. And you always do a musical because it wasn't a sports camp. And I auditioned for Dorothy and I cried when I sang Over the Rainbow and they didn't give it to me. They gave it to some pretty little blonde, you know. And it was like, oh, fuck. And they gave me, they cast me as the Wicked Witch of the West, surprisingly. Yeah.

And it was no lines. It was pantomime. And I remember saying to the counselor, can I write my own lines? And I wrote this whole melting death scene, you know, and I tried to change it for Margaret Hamilton and make it different. And I did the whole scene and I was supposed to crawl underneath the stage, crawl underneath the curtain and, you know, in my death. And instead I got a standing ovation. I had to stand up out of my death scene and,

and take a bow. And then at the curtain call, I got more applause than Dorothy. And then I said, all right, that's it. I need to be a character actress. I see that that's my ability. I was eight. Eight years old. Eight years old. I was like, I got to be a character actress. I don't, you know, being the witch is better than playing Dorothy.

And then, you know, then puberty happens. And, you know, so many women relate to this. I got so deeply insecure and there was theater stuff at my school. I was too scared to ever audition. And all I did was, you know, hang out at the football field and smoke pot and just lost. And then I went to SUNY Purchase, which is known as a great

theater school, but I was too scared to audition. And I went there thinking, well, it's a theater school. I could take class, but that was not the case because it was a conservatory.

So then I went through four years of college and I was a poli-sci major, urban studies major. And when I was a sophomore, I told my parents I wanted to quit and move into the city and take acting classes. At age what? At age what was this? A sophomore in college. So what was I? 19, 18 something. And they were like, you can't do that. You can't do that. So I didn't. And I graduated. And the minute I graduated, I moved into the city and started taking acting classes and waitressing. But then I got...

I was scared. I was in a deep, deep depression and scared and didn't know what to do with my life and was in a very bad mental place, like a real dark depression, bad boyfriend and all of that. But when I was waitressing, the way that I would make it fun for myself is I would go back into the kitchen and imitate all the customers.

So the people that I was waitressing with kept on telling me to get on stage and do stand-up, but I was too scared. So I took a class, and again, they would give an assignment, and I would cut because I was too scared to do the assignment. And one day, this guy in class said, we would go out after class, and he was like, you're really funny when you do these characters, so how about if I just interview you in these different characters?

And we did that in class and it was, everybody laughed and it was like, wow, people are laughing. And then I took an improv class and I was like, found that I was really good at it, which I was scared to death to do.

So again, they got, they forced, those people forced me to go to an open mic night, which I did. And I just did, I never spoke in my own voice. I just did these characters that I used to do. People in my family, you know, the president of the Menudo fan club I used to do, this Hispanic girl and

my grandmother and all her friends, you know, stuff like that. And there were these guys there who came over to me and they said, we're opening up a club and we think you're really funny. We'd like you to come work for us. And I was like, okay. I gave them my number.

Forgot all about it. Never got on stage again because I was too scared. And about three or four months later, they called me and they said, remember us? Well, we're opening up the club next week. We want you to come down. And I did. And that was a place called Comedy U on University and 13th Street. And those guys just put me on stage. They just loved me and put me on stage. So for six months, I just worked there and developed. And if not for them, I don't know that I ever would have been a stand-up.

Because the acting thing was not working for me. You know what that's like. You got your head shots and you're going around to agents and nobody wants you. You know, it's horrible. Yeah. Nobody wants you. You're looking at backstage. Remember backstage? I do. Yeah. And you'd look at it for auditions and show up to these open calls and nobody wanted me. Yeah. No, it's a catch-22. You need an agent to help you get work. How do you get an agent? You got to have work. Yeah.

You know, yeah. Let me ask you, did you write, what was the process for you in the early stand-up? I always wrote everything, yeah. The jokes, pretty much a script? Yeah.

In the beginning, I wrote everything. And then after about six months, I realized I needed to speak in my own voice and I needed to break out and go to the uptown clubs, which would be, you know, Catch a Rising Star, the improv, the comic strip, because that's where you got seen in the industry. So I didn't, to me in standup, the most difficult thing in standup is figuring out your voice, figuring out who you are as a comic. Right.

And so I had to go through that process. So I started emceeing and started just talking and figuring out. And then I got into a really bad habit where I would only write on stage. I would have premises.

And, you know, some comics like Jerry Seinfeld, for example, he'll sit down every day and write jokes. I was never able to do that. Larry always had things written and, you know, fully formed. I was never able to do that. I had to write with the gun to my head. So I would have a premise. I'd be on stage and somehow I'd come up with a punchline in the moment on stage. I had to have that adrenaline fear in order to get the punchline. And I developed my act like that.

Did you, if you had to say, when I discovered my voice later on, what would you, how would you describe that voice? And if you had to put it in a sentence?

I think what I started doing, it's funny because so many female comics do it now, but I started just talking about things that I was going through. I was dating a lot of younger guys. I was, you know, talking about sex, which most women were not talking about sex in a way that they actually enjoyed it. Right. It was, you know, you know, the old days, it was always like, oh, my husband, get him off of me. You know, that kind of crap. Yeah.

And so I was this single girl out there dating and talking about that and talking a lot about my family. And I just tried to be authentic. I realized that

You know, Joy Behar is my best friend. I love her, by the way. Yes. Say hi. Yes. And we started out together. She was already 40 when she started. Like, she didn't start doing stand-up really seriously until she was 40. So she was in many ways a mentor to me. And I remember the first time I saw her on stage and I had this...

where I thought, oh, I get it. I just have to be the way that I am sitting around the kitchen table talking to my girlfriends, which is what she was doing. Right. And what I always did and was funny with my girlfriends. So I tried to just...

Make the audience into my friends and family and just be relaxed in front of them and just present myself as how I did in real life. And eventually it developed and it was consistent. You have to be consistent too. That's another thing. Stand-up's hard.

Consistent in that character that people are responding to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you have to, to me, I always had to be truthful, even though it's not literally the truth. Right. You know, it had to be truthful and honest. And then I just developed into crowd work, doing crowd work really well, which, you know, was originally just...

Meaning working the audience because I emceed a lot, which is how I developed in a lot of ways. So, yeah, it was a process that took a long, long time. A long time. I remember Ronnie Shakes, who was a great comic who died very young. I remember he said something to me when I first started saying something like, it takes 10 years to

Or, you know, he said, it takes five years to figure out who you are on stage. And I was, you know, arrogant. I was like, well, it's not going to take me that long. It took me 10, you know, at least, if not 12. Who are some of the people you admire most in that same field? When I, well, I mean, to me, the greatest standup ever was Pryor. Yeah. I just thought that he was just.

Because he was everything. You know, he was vulnerable and he ripped his heart open, but yet he was really funny and he had great material and he did characters and he told stories and he was just everything that... Made you think. Yeah. Made you think, made you laugh. I mean, he was hilarious. And a lot of comics will say that he's their idol. And what was interesting, I had never been in a comedy club and I came out to LA to visit my cousin Michael. And

And he had just directed prior in a movie, Some Kind of Hero was the name of the movie. And he took me to the comedy store to see him. And he was there workshopping material. It was after that first brilliant concert movie that he made. And I saw him and I was like...

Some stuff was not working. He was workshopping. Some stuff was hilarious and some stuff wasn't working. And that was when I first realized, it was before I had ever gotten on stage, that I thought you had to have it all down. I didn't know the process. I saw these guys growing up on Ed Sullivan and they had their bits. You know what I mean? I didn't realize that you workshopped it and you worked it and you developed it. So he was really my biggest influence in that way.

But coming up, I came up with Jon Stewart and Colin Quinn and Joy Behar. And, oh, God, I'm forgetting people. Jerry was already well-established by the time I came around. Right.

And Larry. Yeah. And Larry. Enough about Larry. Forgive my ignorance. Do you tour doing stand-up or do you do just individual nights here and there? I don't do it anymore, Ted. But did you? I have such...

I didn't tour that much because, you know, it was never the women never really loved being on the road. The guys all got laid when they were on the road. The women, not so much. You know, we would have to like go back to this disgusting condo that they would put you up in. And I never did the road a lot. Luckily, I got used to get a lot of work doing voiceovers. And I did like every country club in the tri-state area. And I limped along making a living without going on the road. I'm slightly agoraphobic also. I don't like leaving home. Me either.

I don't know if we ever know what is the world saying what you should or shouldn't do with your career or what it is that it's originating from you.

But I love ensemble. I love going to work in the same place, driving through the same studio gates. Now, did I have to love it because film didn't work out for me as much as television did? Maybe. But the truth is, I am the same way. I love going home at night. I love it. And I'm not great in a hotel room. You and I both, I know because we've had this discussion, love to work. I love to work. I love the crew. I like...

like the camaraderie. I love the whole feeling on set. You know, even night shoots, which are so hard and you're all sitting around freezing with a cup of coffee. And, you know, there's something, there's a romance to it that I enjoy. And I love the collaborative sense of it. Yep. Which is very different from stand-up. Although stand-up, you are collaborating with the audience. Right. Right. You know, I still marvel over, like, how good you are as an actor and

throwing the ball back and forth because not everyone does that. Not everyone can be stand-up funny, which you are, and turn around and be collaborative actor funny. But I also think, you know, the skill, one of the reasons why I was a successful stand-up, because I was never a great writer. I was an okay writer. I was a great performer, was because as a performer, I learned, and this goes back to

my mother, relationship with my mother, but I learned to listen to the audience.

And I don't mean literally listen. You know, young comedians come to me and ask my advice and I always tell them, you have to talk to the audience. And again, I don't mean literally talking to the audience. I mean, you actually, you're not up there, you know, just reading a cue card. You're up there connecting to an audience in a way. And I think that that's especially on Curb because we're improvising. Listening is the most important thing. Right. Right. It's so true. It is like,

And the people who don't do that well on Curb or whatever are those who have planned out how to be funny. This is a great joke, so I'm going to make sure I work this in. As opposed to show up, listen, and figure out how you can serve Larry in that moment. Right. Exactly. Which to me is way more fun. Yeah.

Yeah, I agree. Plus, it's what we're supposed to be doing no matter what job, acting job we're doing. We're supposed to be listening, you know? I think it's actually the key to every relationship in life. Yeah. You know, I mean, you have kids. Listen to your kids, even your animals, you know? Yeah. Listen. And in a marriage, it's really important. I'm sorry, I wasn't listening. What did you say? Ha, ba-boom, ba-boom, boom, boom. Yeah.

And it relieves you of a big pressure because otherwise you think that you have to invent and know everything. You don't. Listen, and you'll figure it out. My dad works in B2B marketing. He came by my school for career day and said he was a big ROAS man. Then he told everyone how much he loved calculating his return on ad spend.

My friend's still laughing at me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn, you'll be able to reach people who do. Get $100 credit on your next ad campaign. Go to LinkedIn.com slash results to claim your credit. That's LinkedIn.com slash results. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn, the place to be, to be. Let's go back to the beginning of Curb.

I'm assuming you would get recognized in New York from your stand-up here and there. Yeah. But you got shot out of a cannon by the second or third season. It was season three. What was that like? I mean, it's complimentary and it feels good, but it also can be complicated. What was that like to be shot out of that cannon?

Well, I just anecdotally sees, you know, we were very under the radar the first few seasons, first two. And it was season three that I started to notice a difference that people were stopping me in the street. You know, for me,

And it's, people just ask me to tell them to go fuck themselves, you know, or people would, I'd be at the produce section in Fairway or Zabar's and somebody would shove a phone in my face and say, it's my husband, call him a fat fuck, you know, that kind of thing. Which, you know, I'm not always in the mood. I'm shopping, you know, whatever. And it's a character I'm playing. It's not what I actually do in real life. So it was,

I think, you know, in New York, people are very sophisticated. In LA too, they're very sophisticated. They don't really bother you. And generally, people are very...

What I would find is generally people would just stop me and say, I love you or you made me laugh. And then you get those stories where they're like, my father was dying and all he did was watch you and, you know, that kind of thing, which is always still to this day touching to me and makes me feel like I actually maybe have a purpose in life, you know. But it was nice. It was nice to have that recognition and people telling you that you made them laugh. You know what? This is going to sound so treacly.

But I feel very lucky to be able to make people laugh. I feel extremely blessed to be able to make people laugh. It's like you're putting a good thing into the world. It is. I agree. And everybody says we're not curing cancer. I disagree. Exactly. We are. Yeah. Laughter is an amazing thing. Unlike you, I'm dependent on a funny writer. Yeah.

Well, I have to disagree with you, Ted, because I've improvised with you and you're pretty damn funny. Okay, but a writer spent three months working on this setup for that funny, to be honest. But yes, actually, you know what? If somebody says, I can be funny by listening. I can be funny in a moment off of something you did. But...

I would not say, you know, that I'm funny all by myself. I'm funny with a good script. Well, you're funny on Curb, and I know you write those lines, and I know you respond, and your character... You know what's always made me laugh? Not that Ted Danson is friends with Susie Essman, but that Ted Danson on the show is such good friends with Susie Green. I've always found that hilarious because it's so... Her character is so not somebody that Ted Danson would be friends with. Giving her...

Well, I was about to say something that I can't say. Go, go, go. Giving her... No, no, no. It was about this season. I don't want to say anything. I don't want to give anything away. Very good. Just a birthday gift you gave me this season.

Which is designed to rub it in Larry's face. Right, exactly, which I do. Yeah, you do. I love also something that I don't know how much part you had in it probably, but your wardrobe, what Susie wears on the show is like astoundingly, wonderfully beautiful.

borderline bad. Yeah. Well, it's not just borderline. It's bad. Thank you. It's, it's a character thing. Um, you know, you know how some actors work from the inside out. You know, I know Lawrence Olivier used to always do like putty on his nose and then become the character for me with Susie green. I put on those outfits and I just become her, you know, it's like the wardrobe. And then I just become her. Um, I kind of,

I developed the idea of what I wanted her to look like. I just wanted, you know, I don't want to play myself. I'm with myself all day long. I wanted to play a character and I wanted her to, to just think she had, there were these girls that I grew up with that used to be so secure in who they were. And,

And they were completely mediocre. And yet they were completely secure. They must have had mothers that really, really loved them because they were so secure in who they were. And I used to marvel at them because I had a very difficult relationship with my mother. And I was deeply insecure. And I wanted to be that kind of a character that just whatever she wore, she thought she was gorgeous and dressed well.

She thinks Cheryl has the worst taste in the whole world and that she has the greatest taste. I just wanted to play this character that just thought that everything she did was just fabulous and had no insecurities whatsoever. And if you don't like it, go fuck yourself. Yeah, and that's what I kind of created. And our first wardrobe designer, Wendy Range Rau, I remember telling her how I wanted her to dress differently.

And I said to her, she's like, well, where am I going to find clothes like that? And I said, the back room of Lohman's. And you wouldn't know this because you're a guy. And she was like, what's that? So I had to take her to the back room of Lohman's and show her how these women dress. Where's Lohman's? Well, now it's out of business. It's bankrupt now. But it was in New York, right? It was in New York, but there was also one right next to the Beverly Center in L.A.,

But so then, and then each, then Christina Mangini came along and then Leslie Schilling, our wardrobe designers, and each one took it to the next level. And it's really them that create, you know, they helped me create the look. Just finding the most bizarre. I mean, Leslie has taken it beyond anything this season. It's amazing how much.

I will do all this thinking about, oh, my character will be this and that, or, you know, I'll even go so far. I'm so lame. You know, it's like, what if something funny comes his way? He'll probably react like, I'm reacting to imaginary bullshit in my head, you know, that has nothing to do with anything. So I have all these bad instincts. You know, maybe I could have a scar or a limp. Yeah, yeah, that would be it. You know, and then you walk into wardrobe.

And if you've got a creative soul opposite you, all of a sudden they dress, put you in something and you go, oh, I got it. You know, for me on The Good Place, the wardrobe, the costume designer handed me a bow tie and I put the bow tie on. It was like, oh, yeah. That completely changes everything. Everything. Yeah. Yeah.

Pretty bold move. That's what's so much fun about film and television that a lot of people don't realize how collaborative. They just see us because we're in front of the camera. But, you know, and if you notice, if you're on set, you see the makeup artist is only looking at your makeup. The wardrobe person is only looking at your wardrobe. The lighting person is only looking at the lighting. You know, everybody's doing their small little thing and they're so focused and so good at what they do. Yeah.

Magic wand. What are you doing five years from now? Everything. Do the whole picture. Work-wise first. Well, five years from now, I would love to be on a series in New York that shoots in New York because, as you know, I live in New York. That is fun. I want to work with people that I respect and love and do stuff that's funny.

That's my five years from now. And I love doing voiceover animation. I love doing that kind of stuff. You do a lot of it too. I do a lot of that. Yeah. And I really, really love that. You know, again, one of the joys...

go back to Curb. One of the joys of Curb is that we don't have to memorize lines. Yes. And it's the same thing when you're doing animation. You've got a script in front of you, which, you know. Yeah. You just have to show up, basically. You just have to show up. And I always have tremendous anxiety when I have to memorize lines. I mean, I'm in bed the night before, like, you know, going over it, going over it. I'm not very good at it. Although it is a muscle you get better at, I think. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I know. My fear now is, like, don't let your...

Your desire to, you know, and your focus be only on saying the lines correctly to the, you know, and leave behind the being with and listening and reacting, you know, spontaneously.

Because you're worrying about... Yeah, it's much easier when you're improvising. I mean, I would love to do another improvised show, but what I think people don't realize, a lot of people have tried to do improvised shows post-curb, and they don't have Larry's story brain. Yeah. So they don't work. What we're not doing is just some free-for-all improv. There's a very...

I mean, I'm telling you, you know this, but I'm telling the audience. This is a very detailed outline, and we know exactly what has to happen in the scene. And it's all about pushing the story forward. And the first take, a lot of times, is crap. And then you go, okay, don't do that. And everyone kind of realizes, oh, I better not. That was the wrong hallway to go down. So by about the fourth or fifth take, you haven't improvised the script, but everybody knows that.

Where they're going. Yeah, we find the scene. I think it takes us a number of takes to find. Every now and then you find it really early on. But I think it's usually four, five, six where we find the scene. And then, you know, we and it's an interesting way that we work because nobody says, OK, that's it. Do that again. We just know. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. And you don't have the, oh dear, I better not go out and have a glass of wine with my friends tonight because I have to work the next day, which with scripted shows, you know. You do. You do. But you do have to show up on Curb and other shows like that with an athletic energy. You need to be, your headlights need to be on because it's fast. It's exhausting. Yeah, yeah, it is.

It's exhausting. I mean, I hate to say that because there's like really exhausting jobs. Yes, that's true. But five years from now, I want to be working at something interesting and well-written. I guess this would be the answer. With creative people. With creative souls. Yeah. With creative souls that I enjoy their company. But I don't see retiring. Do you? No. No, I don't. I can see not doing...

10 months a year kind of work, but maybe seven or eight, you know? Yeah. Hey, here's the truth. Here I am doing a podcast because I love going to work and it was the only work available. So yes. Right now. Yes, I can. I want to be able to see what funny, I'm 75, I'll be 76 when I start working on this next thing that's lined up that I want to know what

Being funny, a 76-year-old man, I want to know what that is in relationship to funny. I want to do that the rest of my life. And I want to do things, for my magic wand, I'd want to add, I want things that are reflective of the humanity of my moment in time. I want to know what it's like, the frailties, the humor, the whatever, of being 76. Yeah. Yeah.

And you know what else? Because, you know, we both have grandkids. I also want to do things that my grandkids can see. Yes. Yes. Which is why I like doing cartoony stuff. Yeah. You know, they're a little young now to see, but I want them to be able to feel like, oh my God, that's grandma's voice. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. I will forever owe Mike Shore, who did, created The Good Place. He's a wonderful writer, creator, and

Because 12, 13, 14-year-olds love The Good Place. It was a great show, Ted. Yeah. No, it really was. Really was. And it delights me to have people come up thoroughly engaged with something that you were part of. It's really, really fun. Yeah, it is. Can I back up one more second? Yeah. Do whatever you want. Okay. Bronx. Bronx. Yeah. You know, when I was...

eight through, let's go, 15. I was jumping on horses in the middle of Arizona and riding in this direction, that direction, whatever I wanted, get up at eight, be back by dinnertime or you're in trouble with my friends. It was a very rural, amazing life. What were you doing? What was your life like eight to 15? Well,

Well, I, at that point we didn't live in the Bronx anymore. We lived in Mount Vernon, which is right next to the Bronx, but more suburban, uh, but not suburban, suburban, but we, we didn't have horses, you know, it wasn't suburban, suburban, um, or rural in any way. Uh, you know, it's an interesting thing. Cause I think that, that you end up doing what you end up doing. Um,

Like when I was a little girl, eight, nine, 10, and my friends wanted to play house. I was like, I don't want to play house. It's the most boring thing. I don't want to be married. I don't want to. I got my sister got for Hanukkah one year, a little reel to reel tape recorder. So I was playing Johnny Carson. I would walk around and interview people and play Johnny Carson. I wanted to play talk show host. And I was always writing. Wow.

So that was early on. Susie was showing up early on. Wow. Early on. And I would write all these plays and things and get the neighborhood to put them on, you know, in the backyard or in the whatever. And, you know, in our house, we had like a little cubby hole that I would do like little shows in. And so, yeah, I was always doing that. It's funny because, you know, Jimmy, my husband, who, you know,

he was building go-karts because he ended up building, being a builder and he was building go-karts and, and this and that. And that's what he was doing. He ended up doing that. And I was, you know, walking around with my tape recorder, interviewing people and playing different characters. Yeah. I love that.

That's what I was doing. And then I used to go, my grandmother lived in the Bronx and she lived right across the street from Yankee Stadium. And in the summers, I used to spend the summers with her and we would go to this beach club

that was like a dumpy place and it was called Shorehaven, but I thought it was called Shorehaven, like George Bernard Shorehaven, because that's what she used to say. We're going Shorehaven. That's what I thought it was. And I would go with her and she would be sitting with all the old ladies playing canasta or cards. And I would just sit and watch them like I was Jane Goodall or something watching

you know, this sociological thing. And just like, I remember there was this one woman, Mitzi, who was clearly the ringleader, you know, and I would just watch how they all interacted with each other. And they would say, she's so good. Look how she just sits. She's so good. But I was studying them. I was just studying these old ladies who had all been immigrants and then all come to this country and

Just things like that. I was just always observing people. And then I would go home and I would imitate them all for my family. I love that. I read that your great-grandfather was a silent film actor. Did I get that right? Yes, he was in the Yiddish theater. And his wife had something to do with opera? Am I getting that right? Well, no. My great-grandfather, his name was Leo Fyodorov. He was the impresario of the Russian Grand Opera Company. Oh, wow.

And, um, and then they came to this, they, they left, uh, Moscow in 1917, right at the revolution. And they toured all through the far East and they ended up coming here through Seattle or something. And then they toured all through this country. They ended up in, in, uh,

New York and they were bankrupt. And then he was in silent films. He was with Lon Chaney or Chaney in Laugh, Clown, Laugh and Phantom of the Opera. And he was in the Yiddish theater. And yeah, but I never knew him. No, but did just having that family history, did that, because some people, I had no actors in my family going back at all. Did it have an impact?

I think it did. I think that it was, it told me that it was a thing that you were possibly able to do for a living in life. And then, you know, growing up in New York, my parents used to take me to Broadway all the time, which was a huge influence on me. You know, being in the theater, it was, as a kid, it was so exciting to sit and, it still is.

I still love going to Broadway, but to sit in the theater and the orchestra starts, you know, and then there's actors and they're singing and dancing. And it was thrilling to me. And having people in my family who are in the arts, I think, allowed me to know that it was a possibility to do, although I had no encouragement whatsoever from anybody. They thought I was crazy.

So not warm and fuzzy at home with parents? No, no, not warm and fuzzy. No, not warm and fuzzy. And very much when I said that I wanted to be an actress, you know, like a lot of eye rolling and, you know, just I had to waitress and support myself. And nobody ever said I was good and you could do that. Nobody ever said, follow your dreams. You could do this. Remember in A Star is Born with the grandmother, the original one with Jeanette? Yeah.

gainer and the grandma that says you could do this and nobody ever did that to me. Somehow, you know, I think comedians are

And some people might disagree with this, but I think for comedians that there's got to be, it's so hard to get up there and do that. There's got to be someplace in you, no matter how insecure you are. And we're all deeply insecure. There's got to be something in you that knows that you can do this and that you have the talent. And a smidge of fuck you watch this. Exactly. Not even a smidge, a lot. Yeah.

Oh, I so hope with your magic wand, you so deserve to be New York, New York, New York. Because that really is, you know, working in New York, there's nothing like it. And you deserve that. Oh, you did. What did you do in New York? You did Damages. Was that in New York? Yeah. Which, by the way, can I just say, oh, Bored to Death. I loved you in Bored to Death. It was an homage to Brooklyn. I mean.

Damages was a real dramatic role for you, and that just showed your range. But also funny to my... Yes. It was... I was so far off base, so ignorant of the fact that Glenn was going to eat my lunch, that it was kind of funny. Yeah, but it was drama. No, it was. I mean, you were acting. Yeah, acting. Yeah. I love boarded up, too. Shooting in New York's a little...

Bored to Death was a terrific series. I love that. I watched the whole thing. Shooting in New York is a little more difficult than shooting in LA, I think. But, you know, it's kind of worth it. Well, I don't know if because you grew up in New York, but for us who didn't,

But went to study. I got to New York in 1972, having come from Carnegie Mellon University, which was all acting kind of thing. And we all went to New York and tried to make our bones. And we knocked on doors and auditioned. And if you studied acting again, if you do that and then come back someday to work in New York, it is so thrilling to me. Working in New York was just like, wow.

Did you ever do theater here in New York? I did. My first job was at Theater 4, I think like on 54th Street off Broadway. And it was a Tom Stoppard play, two one acts called The Real Inspector Hound and After Magritte. And it was 1972, 73. And it was truly some of the funniest writing in New York at the moment. So, and I understood. He was a great writer. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

And I got to understudy and the play had been going for about a year, which is about the same amount of time that it takes for most of the actors in the production to go, I want a long weekend or I'm going to pretend to be sick or something. So I went on every night. After about three months, I was going on every night doing somebody's part. It was a great job. That was lucky. That was lucky. Then I have my one Broadway story. It's kind of wonderfully classic.

It was a show out of the Goodman Theater in Chicago. And it was called, I can't remember. And sorry, that's not the name of it. I can't remember it. But I played a bartender. And we went out. Yeah. I was like the third lead kind of thing. And we did really well. It was really well produced and directed. So all the jokes, all the rim shots were perfectly executed.

So you couldn't help but laugh. And we came to New York, opening night, huge laughter. But it was the kind of laughter that they'd laugh because the rim shot, you know, was so good that they forced you to laugh. But then you could hear the laugh going...

Wait a minute, what am I laughing at? And then the big rally again. And we went to Sardi's, which was like a dream come true. All your famous people on the wall. And there were some famous people who had come and went to the party. And this was back during Clive Barnes and Rex Reed. Rex Reed hated Clive Barnes, the critic for the New York Times. For the New York Times, yeah. Yeah, who could open and close, I mean, close a show like, boom, like that.

So I was upstairs at Sardi's and there's a bar and it has a cage that comes down at the end of the night. And Rex Reed was holding court and the papers arrived for the reviews. And he decided to read Clive Barnes' review of our show.

ridiculing and mocking Clive Barnes's choice of words while Clive Barnes on paper was ripping us a new asshole and just hated the production. So you were found yourself having to laugh at Rex Reed while hearing that your, you know, your show was getting clobbered. Your show was going to, that was it. So the next morning I take my, my mother and father had flown out from Arizona and

We were in Times Square, and I put them in a cab, and off they went. And I went to do the matinee, and I walked in a little early. I think I was the first one there. And the stage door man said, hey, whoa, where are you going? I went, I work here. And he pointed to the sign and went, not anymore, you don't, pal. And they closed it. It was my one night. They closed it. Yeah, it was my Broadway showcase.

Well, at least you got to go to Sardi's. I did. I did. And it forced... You know, that's very all about Eve. Yes. Without the successful ending. Yeah. Right. I had trouble getting arrested in New York, theater-wise.

What year did you do Cheers? I was 82, and I moved. Yeah, we moved from New York to L.A. in 78. Right around the time I realized, oh, we're going to have children, I wanted to go west, closer to my family, closer to what made me feel comfortable. And Southern California had always been part of my life, as well as Arizona. So going there, and any audition that I did,

that involved film or television that I didn't get in New York, but it just made me realize I really want to be doing that.

So we went to California. Yeah. And it worked out very nicely for you, Ted Danson. It did. And here we are, you in New York and me in L.A. talking to each other. I adore you. I'm so glad that we got the— I'll come to L.A. anytime to work with you. Yeah. Back at you. Come visit. Mary sends her love. Come visit. And I send mine back. I adore her. Hey, thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you, Ted Danson. See you soon. Bye, Suzy. Bye.

Thank you.