Larry David isn't a curmudgeon; he just plays one on TV -- and now movies. "I'm not," smiles the star of TV's "Curb Your Enthusiasm" and Woody Allen's latest film, "Whatever Works."
"I didn't even know I played a curmudgeon. I'm not aware that I'm playing a curmudgeon on the show," he elaborated. "What happens is that the situations that I get into dictate that I behave like that. That's all. Because those situations are funnier -- I think."
At some point, fiction and reality merge, since David looks, acts and is dressed like the character of Larry David he plays in "Curb." In "Whatever Works," opening Friday, David plays Boris, a crusty physicist who also looks, acts and is dressed like the real David.
"Everyone knows how funny Larry can be on television," Allen said. "And in this movie he's a character who's really had it with society ... just a vitriolic person. And Larry can play that, but that's not Larry as I know him in life. He's got many interests.
"He's got kids. He likes sports. He's a perfectly engaging person."
David, who co-created the comedy classic "Seinfeld," wasn't sure he was up to the task of playing Boris, never having played a dramatic role. He doesn't count the small roles he has had over the years, including parts in two Allen films -- "Radio Days" and "New York Stories" -- more than 20 years ago. But since he really hadn't had much contact with the director in the ensuing years, David was surprised and a bit reluctant when he was offered the script.
Particularly daunting were Boris' long monologues as he addresses the camera.
"I was thinking when I first saw it, maybe they'll use a teleprompter," he joked, adding that "the character on 'Curb' seems kind of normal compared to Boris. He wants relationships and sex and things like that. Boris wears shorts. Never would the character on 'Curb' or the character talking to you wear shorts. So I think it's a very disturbing thing." He then admitted slyly that the shorts were his idea.
