Jessica MiglioSix years later, Larry David and the Curb Your Enthusiasm cast don't seem to have missed a beat.
That's not a shock, but it still felt like a breath of fresh air when David took the stage at the TV Critics' Association summer press tour alongside Susie Essman, Jeff Garlin, J.B. Smoove, and executive producer Jeff Schaffer. They spent the hour making fun of journalists' questions and journalists themselves, but they did also give us a few bits and pieces about what to expect from the new season of the comedy series, which returns for the first time since 2011 this October.
First of all, why now?
"Why not? You know, I kinda...I'm not a misser, so to speak," David told reporters. "I don't really miss things, people that much, but I was missing it, and I was missing these idiots, so I thought yeah, what the hell. And I got tired of people asking me 'is the show coming back?' I couldn't face that question anymore. I wasn't ready to say no, never, and I kept saying, oh you know, maybe, who knows, so I thought yeah, I wouldn't have to be asked that anymore."
Executive producer Jeff Schaffer teased that the new season is "very dense" and that there are a lot of stories. He also revealed that we will very quickly learn what Larry's been up to for the past five or six years.
"It'll be self-evident," Schaffer said, before the show goes to a "very fun crazy strange place."
Apparently, the real Larry (who is only "about a quarter of an inch away" from TV Larry) has gotten into enough awkward situations since the end of season eight to fill season nine.
"The amount of uncomfortable situations he's been in...it's like we're sitting in the Fort Knox of awkward," Schaffer said.
While Smoove promised that his character Leon is the "same old Leon," Jeff Garlin revealed an unexpected inspiration for the upcoming episodes.
"It really thematically follows Pirates of the Caribbean," he joked(?) of season nine. "More like the last one than the first few.
Curb Your Enthusiasm returns Sunday, October 1 on HBO.