The ‘Filthy’ Performance That Secured Susie Essman’s Role in ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’
Curb Your Enthusiasm just wouldn’t have been the same without Susie Greene, the foul-mouthed kaftan entrepreneur who won’t hesitate to loudly put Larry David in his place — which the real Larry loves, apparently.
Susie Greene is, of course, played by comedian Susie Essman, who seems very kind in real life. It’s hard to imagine her ever calling anybody a “fat fuck” or a “bald piece of shit.” So why was she cast as Curb’s biggest vulgarian?
While Essman knew David from back in their 1980s stand-up comedy days, it wasn’t until a specific performance in 1999 that the Seinfeld co-creator realized that she would be perfect for the role of Jeff’s rage-prone wife.
Don't Miss
Essman recently guested on Ted Danson’s podcast Where Everybody Knows Your Name. Obviously the two worked together on Curb, but as Essman told Danson, the interview finally gave them an opportunity to chat without “Larry annoying us.”
As she was discussing how she was cast on Curb, Essman revealed that she had lost touch with David after he moved to Los Angeles and she stayed in New York. Although her career was “struggling,” in 1999, she landed a spot in the Friars Club roast of Jerry Stiller. “They asked me to do this roast, and Comedy Central didn’t want me to do the roast, ‘cause I was not what their demographic was,” Essman explained. “I don’t know why. Too female, too old, too Jewish — whatever it was. And the Friars Club fought for me to do that roast, because I had made my bones with them.”
The evening featured a lineup of stars, including a singing Jason Alexander and Stiller’s King of Queens co-star Kevin James. But Essman came down with a case of laryngitis and lost her voice before the show. “I was so nervous,” she told Danson.As she started her set, Essman adeptly used her ailment to her advantage, apologizing for her hoarse voice, before adding, “Jerry knows why, I know why. Enough said.”
While she was always a “blue” comic, she didn’t hold back during the roast set, telling Stiller, “You’re so cute and adorable, I just find it hard to say all these kinds of mean, sexual things. But then I look at this dais, and I think, these other miserable cocksuckers I could have a field day with.”
“I did the roast and I was filthy because that’s what you have to be. You have to be really blue on a roast,” Essman recalled. And that unapologetic crassness caught the attention of her old friend Larry David. “He saw me, and he was like, ‘Oh, Susie!’ You know, it was like a lightbulb.”
“I was looking for a foul-mouthed borrego. She roasted Jerry Stiller for a Friars Club roast,” David told an audience in 2024. “She was filthy and vulgar, and I thought, ‘Yeah, she’s going to be perfect.’ I called her up immediately.”
But landing a part on an HBO series wasn’t as glamorous as it might sound. David told her that the project had “no money” so she’d have to pay for her own flight and accommodations. “I’m like, ‘Lar, I don't mind working for day scale, but it’s not gonna cost me. So find some money and fly me out.”
Essman noted that David “eventually flew me out — coach — and put me up in some fleabag place in Venice.” But she still worked for scale for the first three seasons of the show, with no contract.
Preettty, preeettty, preeettttty cheap, Larry.
