Bryan Cranston is easily one of the best actors of his generation. Thanks to his breakout performance in Malcolm In The Middle and then completely re-structuring his career as an Emmy-winning dramatic actor thanks to Breaking Bad, Bryan is now top of his field. It's no wonder why so many fans think he'd make a great Professor Charles Xavier in an MCU version of The X-Men.
But just because Bryan has done so well doesn't mean that he can't see the genius in others. While he has praised many creative minds around him, he holds particular reverence for Larry David.
Larry, who is known for taking terrible experiences and turning them into comic gold, is the co-creator of Seinfeld and the creator and star of HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm. As for Bryan's run-ins with the famous curmudgeon, well, he's appeared on both of Larry's hit shows.
But why exactly does he think so highly of Larry?
The Process Of Making Curb Your Enthusiasm Wowed Bryan
While sitting on The Dan Patrick Show, one of the best sports shows around, Breaking Bad's Bryan Cranston went into detail about his experience working with Larry David. Of course, Bryan worked with Larry on Seinfeld, but he was specifically enthralled with his experience with the master writer on HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm. Specifically, because the show is famously improvised.
This tends to be one of the most common lines of questioning that the cast and crew of Curb Your Enthusiasm seems to get. After all, the show is so intricate and well-structured it's often hard for people to believe that there isn't an actual script for the actors to work from.
"You did Curb Your Enthusiasm," Dan Patrick began.
"Yeah," Bryan responded.
"Is there any script?"
"No, there's no script," Bryan explained. "Larry David sends out a little breakdown of the scenes that you're in. And it'll say, 'In this scene, you're going to talk about your love of truffles' and that, you know, something else. Whatever responsibility you have as far as information getting revealed. And then, he says what he's going to reveal."
Bryan played Larry's therapist, Dr. Templeton, in the 9th season of Curb Your Enthusiasm. And one of the pieces of information he was given that Larry would reveal was the quality disparity between the chairs in the therapist's office... This became the basis of one of their biggest conflicts in the episode.
"And from then on, it's just 'make it up'", Bryan said of the process of making the show. While on The Rich Eisen show, Bryan also described just how much he loved working with Larry personally. In fact, he called him a "lovely curmudgeon".
Bryan Learned A Lot From Larry David And Jerry Seinfeld
"Now, I had the good fortune of being in comedy boot camp from being on Seinfeld for a few years. And watching Larry David craft a joke like a surgeon," Byran said while speaking to Dan Patrick.
But Bryan said it wasn't just Larry, it was Larry's good friend and Seinfeld co-creator Jerry Seinfeld working together.
"And Jerry and he working together [were] talking in a language you can't really understand unless you're on the inside. And I was able to be watching that tennis match between them."
Byran said that the "timing and care" they put into crafting their comedy makes them both geniuses.
"It's like a souffle. It's that delicate. You could crush a joke or you can lift it just by the way it's delivered or the timing," Bryan claimed.
"And I think that's the key, and comedians talk about this," Dan Patrick added before describing his experience doing a pre-recorded bit with Jerry Seinfeld who gave brutal but brilliant advice. Particularly about the importance of the cadence of your delivery and, of course, the timing.
Dan went not to say that he was impressed that Bryan picked up his comic skills so swiftly while working on Seinfeld. Of course, he went on to Malcolm In The Middle and then an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm after. But in those early days on Seinfeld, Bryan had to keep up with some of the best in the business while being quite green.
"That's a vast learning curve if you're around those two," Dan said of Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld.
"Yeah. It is. And it's a lot to take in. Because Jerry probably had the 10,000 hours to become proficient and an expert in that field," Bryan said, adding that Larry David was the same.
Luckily, Byran did manage to pick up on all of those comedy skills, which is one of the reasons why he landed a lead role on Malcolm In The Middle, the show that made him famous. But after doing so many serious award-winning roles, such as playing Walter White/Heisenberg on AMC's Breaking Bad, one could imagine that you could lose your funny bone.
But that wasn't the case for Bryan Cranston who has done a number of comedic roles since Breaking Bad, including voicing characters on Family Guy and Robot Chicken.
His performance as Dr. Templeton on Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm also earned him rave reviews. He even snagged a guest-star Emmy nomination for it.
However, all of the accolades clearly wasn't why he wanted to do it. Working with Larry David on Seinfeld had been such a rewarding opportunity for Bryan, therefore passing up a chance to work with him on Curb just wasn't going to happen.
