Curb Your Enthusiasm is the kind of show one has come to expect from writer and star Larry David. And with each new season comes David and executive producer Jeff Schaffer talking about it being the end for the series. While there was a break in the show (six years between seasons 8 and 9 and then another three years between Season 9 and Season 10), the series came back for Season 11 and gained a number of Emmy Awards. But as The Hollywood Reporter said, David was convinced this was the end for the series and Schaffer even told the cast and crew “If this is how we go, this is how we go!”
In a new interview with Schaffer though, he broke down a very important aspect of the show that was filmed and then later changed when they decided to do another season: Larry's death. David plays the character of Larry David in the show, a fictionalized version of himself that has all the quips and mannerisms we've come to love from David mixed with a somewhat fictionalized cast (most have their real first names with different last names. Cheryl Hines also isn't really married to David in real life). The show is improvised making it an interesting format to explore, but it also seems as if Season 11 was really maybe the end for the fictional Larry David.
"I am very proud of this season," Schaffer said when asked about Season 11 and standing up to the legacy of Curb. "Sometimes we don’t know where we are going, but this season when we started with Larry finding the dead guy in the pool, right away I knew that we were going to end it with Larry falling into a pool because there was no fence." He went on to talk about that pool again and how they filmed the scene to, essentially, show us how Larry David died.
When asked about whether the show works backwards once they figure out how they want the season to end, Schaffer explained a bit of the process to making a season of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
"Sometimes it’s obvious. With the season before, we knew that spite store was going to meet its demise, somehow. But this one, it just felt right. I know I say this all the time, but every season is the last season. And I wanted to prepare as if it was the last one. So Larry kept falling into that pool without the fence and banging his head [for the scene]. We actually have a shot after he’d fallen in, of the still pool with just the envelope floating in the middle, and maybe adding one bubble."
When pushed if they filmed it as a death scene, Schaffer said:
"We shot as if it was going to be the last one ever. I had to at least prepare for it." He went on to talk about why they shot a death scene for Larry given that they've never really finished a season of the show and had it be a "finale" of sorts. "This one lent itself too perfectly. We just got high and wide on the pool, with one light shining on it and the envelope floating in the middle. And we said, “OK, if this is how we go, this is how we go!”"
But the season carried on, Larry didn't die, and it came down not to David's track record of thinking he's out of ideas and then thinking of something else but rather instead, "He said, “I’m not ready to die.”"
Check out the trailer for Season 11 below: