‘Comedy Samurai’ Larry Charles Returns: ‘Seinfeld,’ ‘Curb,’ ‘‘Borat,’ and ‘Brüno’

The Last Laugh

The Daily Beast

Comedy Interviews, Comedy, Interviews, Tv & Film, Society & Culture, Tv, Movies, Film

4.6 • 661 Ratings

🗓️ 18 June 2025

⏱️ 71 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Over the course of his 40-year career, Larry Charles has had two central creative relationships with Larry David (‘Seinfeld’ and ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’) and Sacha Baron Cohen (‘Borat’ and ‘Brüno’). Now, he reveals in a new memoir that he hasn’t spoken to either man in years. In his return to The Last Laugh podcast, Charles breaks down how it all fell apart with two comedians he still considers complicated geniuses. He shares stories about how ‘Seinfeld’ solved its early Elaine problem after Julia Louis-Dreyfus came to the creators sobbing and reveals why a young David Sedaris turned down an offer to write for ‘Seinfeld.’ Charles also discloses what exactly it was about his HBO documentary that Larry David couldn’t stand, shares his thoughts about friends Bill Maher and Cheryl Hines flirting with MAGA, explains why there was a time he would have literally “died” for Sacha Baron Cohen and what went so wrong with their final collaboration ‘The Dictator.’

Buy Larry Charles’ new memoir ‘Comedy Samurai: Forty Years of Blood, Guts, and Laughter’

Follow Larry Charles on Instagram @larrycharles

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Transcript

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0:00.0	This is The Last Laugh. I'm Matt Wilstein from The Daily Beast, and today on the show,
0:10.5	I am so thrilled to welcome back one of my all-time favorite writers and directors, Larry Charles.
0:18.0	Larry, who has been an integral part of so many iconic shows and movies, including
0:22.8	Seinfeld, Kerbure Enthusiasm, Borat, and Bruno, was on this podcast not too long ago in the
0:29.2	fall of 2023. But now, he has just released a new memoir called Comedy Samurai, which I had an
0:37.4	absolute blast reading.
0:39.2	So I wanted to have him back on to talk about that and share some of the many insane stories
0:44.7	from the book.
0:45.9	I feel like we barely scratched the surface last time, and there is so much more to talk about,
0:51.2	so we are going to get right into it.
0:53.2	No clip today, just me and the legend
0:55.7	himself, Larry Charles. Welcome back to the last laugh, Larry Charles. How have you been?
1:02.5	Hi, Matt. How are you? I'm good. So good to see you. Thank you, too, my friends. Always good to be
1:08.2	seen, as they say. I feel like we have so much to talk about from your new
1:13.8	memoir, Comedy Samurai, which I just read this past week and really adored and just got so much
1:21.3	out of. We talked on this podcast not too long ago. It was end of 2023, But I kind of feel like we barely scratched the surface of
1:31.9	your career and you got into so much more of it in this book. And I don't think we'll get to all
1:36.7	of it today, but I want to talk about as much as we can. I understand. So yeah. So I thought we could
1:42.7	start by having you read a very short excerpt from the end of the
1:48.0	prologue of the book.
1:49.0	And it's because I feel like it really sets out this mission statement for the book and your
1:54.2	career and who you are as an artist.
	...

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