The ‘Veep’ showrunner was an executive producer on David’s HBO series.
In the world of Curb Your Enthusiasm, news travels fast.
Last week, Curb star J.B. Smoove said Larry David was “thinking about coming back” to the HBO series. Smoove said David even asked him: “If I do come back, are you going to be available?”
David Mandel, who served as an executive producer on Curb and has kept in touch with David since the show wrapped in 2011, tells The Hollywood Reporter that while he didn’t immediately see the news, he quickly heard from friends who all had a common question.
“I didn’t see it but I got like 10 emails from people going, ‘Wait what what what?'” says Mandel. “In the last couple of years, he’s always been thinking about it, but at least until I start seeing outlines, I guess I wont believe it. But I’ll keep my fingers — I’ll keep every finger — crossed that he does more.”
Since the show — which ran from 2000 to 2011 — has been off the air, HBO has said they are open to more seasons, launching frequent questions from fans and to HBO execs about whether David will return. “I don’t think it’s out of [Larry’s] system,” HBO programming chief Michael said during last summer’s Television Critics Association press tour. At the time, David was about to start his Broadway run of Fish in the Dark.
Mandel, who is now the showrunner and executive producer of HBO’s Veep, said he thinks David will return — eventually.
“If you want to bet yes or no, I would bet you every dollar I have on ‘yes, someday,’ I just don’t know when that day will be,” Mandel told THR while promoting Veep‘s current season. “One of the things that’s really special about Curb: For a long time when Larry was married in his own life, the show was one thing. And then we he got divorced, that led to the divorce season, which was really fascinating. And then the show kind of became something else when he was fully divorced and single, and I think the idea that he’ll do more that will reflect what’s going on in his own life, it’s fantastic and there’s nothing else like it on TV. So I hope he does more.”
If David does decide to return and comes calling, Mandel isn’t a free agent — after taking the reins from Veep creator Armando Iannucci last season, Mandel is currently wrapping up the fifth season of the series (airing Sunday nights on HBO) and the Emmy-winning show has been picked up for a sixth.
So what would Mandel do?
“At the moment, my allegiances lie with Veep,” he says. “But I would certainly try and do everything I could to help. It would be as much as I could do, I guess is the honest answer.”
And David is tuning in to see what Mandel, who also is a former Seinfeld writer, and his Seinfeld star Julia Louis-Dreyfus have been up to this season. “I don’t want to put words in his mouth, but he was very complimentary,” Mandel says.
Follow along with THR‘s full season coverage of Veep here.
