Jason Alexander Worried the ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ ‘Seinfeld’ Reunion Would Bomb

Larry David’s HBO comedy series Curb Your Enthusiasm was a departure from the hit NBC sitcom he co-created, Seinfeld — until it wasn’t.

In the new book No Lessons Learned: The Making of Curb Your Enthusiasm as Told by Larry David and the Cast and Crew and as excerpted by The Hollywood Reporter, David and other stars opened up about how the Seinfeld reunion in season 7 came together.

The idea was that the fictional David wanted to win his ex-wife, Cheryl (Cheryl Hines), back and decided a Seinfeld reunion was the perfect way to do so.

David, 78, said the idea for a reunion of the show’s main cast was something he knew they “could have fun with,” plus they “had no other ideas at the time.”

Jeff Schaffer, a writer, director and executive producer for seasons 5 through 12, said they refused to do a “corny” Seinfeld reunion, so they had to get creative.

“We were going to do a Curb-style Seinfeld reunion, which meant Curb Larry was going to get the cast back together and do a reunion for his own selfish reasons,” Schaffer said. “He wanted to get back with Cheryl. His whole agenda was self-serving.”

They specifically steered away from plot points that fans might have wanted to see, such as Jerry Seinfeld’s character and Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Elaine Benes getting married.

“The choice was to deprive people of exactly what they wanted. It was a very Curb choice,” he added.

They decided that Seinfeld, Louis-Dreyfus, Michael Richards, Alexander and other Seinfeld actors would portray fictionalized versions of themselves on Curb as they prepared for, and then filmed, the reunion. 

Seinfeld, 71, thought it was a good idea. “I knew that doing a conventional network-type reunion show was never going to be appropriate for us. So being on Larry’s show was a perfect way to do it,” the actor, who co-created Seinfeld with David, said.

But Alexander, who played George Costanza — a character actually based on the real-life David — did not jump on board as quickly. 

“Initially, I had concerns that a reunion show wouldn’t be a good thing to do, or a fun thing to do,” he said. “We hadn’t worked as a group in 10 years. So we’re all 10 years older.”

“So the first thing I’m thinking is, ‘What was barely charming on characters in their 30s and 40s may be completely devoid of charm in their 40s and 50s, and that may be a mistake.” 

He worried if they would be able to “resurrect” the “ensemble play” they’d found so “effortlessly” on Seinfeld, which ran from 1989 to 1998. He was also worried about the “pure technicality” of making Curb, which relied heavily on improv, in scenes that would have six people.

“I thought this was a daunting task that could show us as being less than we were,” he explained.

He agreed to do the show nonetheless, and ultimately called the experience “glorious.”

“The ensemble feeling that we had, the affection that we had for each other, it was immediate,” he said, adding that being back on set felt like “a time tunnel.”

David, meanwhile, gave Alexander “credit” for playing “a really prickly version of himself” on the show. At the same time, David felt “uncomfortable” filming a plot he wrote for himself: where Alexander drops out of the reunion, and David steps in to play George in the Seinfeld reunion special.

“I was uncomfortable because he was doing me on the show Seinfeld, and now I’m doing him, doing me. It was weird and crazy,” David said.

Schaffer could tell that David was uncomfortable, notably “squirming” throughout filming, but he would remind him, “But it’s going to be so funny.”

“But think about how crazy that was,” Schaffer added. “There’s going to be a Seinfeld reunion, and Jason’s not going to be in it, but TV Larry is going to be playing George. Very odd.”

Curb Your Enthusiasm aired from 1999 to 2024 for 12 seasons. No Lessons Learned came out Sept. 30 and is available wherever books are sold.