The most intriguing unreleased movie that doesn’t involve Jerry Lewis making light of one of history’s biggest tragedies, just might be The Larry David Story.
Larry Charles’ HBO documentary about the life of Seinfeld’s co-creator famously never actually made it to HBO. The two-part doc was mysteriously pulled from the schedule so that “Larry could do it for an audience.” Of course, documentaries can’t really be replicated on stage, hence why Ken Burns never plays stadium shows.
The confusing situation was addressed in Charles’ recent memoir, Comedy Samurai: Forty Years of Blood, Guts and Laughter, in which he reveals that David was unhappy with his physical appearance in the doc (which began as a project for YouTube) and was uncharacteristically emotional while chatting with his friend and collaborator. “He cried. We talked about death and spirituality. We talked about his family,” Charles writes in the book.
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Since Charles neglected to specify what exactly brought Larry to tears during the interview, he was asked about the Curb Your Enthusiasm star’s waterworks during a recent appearance on the We Might Be Drunk podcast.
Presumably because evidence of David expressing genuine emotion is up there with Bigfoot footage, hosts Sam Morril and Mark Normand were curious about what exactly made David “tear up” during their chat. “He was talking about his kids and how much they meant to him,” Charles explained. “And he had genuine emotion about that.”
The director also pointed out that “if you watch him on Curb, it’s all about him not having feelings about anything.” And even though the show reflected most aspects of his real life, including his marital status and professional history, David pointedly opted to make TV’s Larry childless. “That was a choice as well,” Charles observed.
While the show’s foundational anti-stand-up special, Larry David: Curb Your Enthusiasm did briefly make reference to David and Cheryl having kids, the decision about whether or not they would hire child actors for the show was left to the very last minute, and reportedly was made out of “laziness.”
Charles noted that his interview with David touched on a number of other potentially-emotional subjects, but none of them elicited the same response as when they discussed his children. “We talked about the divorce, we talked about his childhood,” Charles recounted, “but that didn’t bring tears to his eyes necessarily.”
David obviously has a huge soft spot for his children, which isn’t too surprising, considering that he once made the very un-Larry David move of cameoing on Hannah Montana for them.
But he clearly doesn’t love expressing his emotions publicly, which would explain why he had the documentary mothballed as if it were the Ark of the Covenant.
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