Julia Louis-Dreyfus once again dismisses “moronic” so-called “Seinfeld curse”
Julia Louis-Dreyfus puts that old "Seinfeld curse" thing to bed once and for all in a new interview
Aux News Julia Louis
The term “Seinfeld curse” is almost oxymoronic. To have been a part of Seinfeld at all is an unmitigated blessing; not only are all those associated with it forever enshrined as comedy legends, but the residual checks from constant Seinfeld reruns must be pretty nice, too. (Particularly in an era of waning residuals.) Yet in the years immediately following the beloved sitcom’s curtain call, that term picked up popularity with the press—which was, to Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ thinking, just regular old moronic.
“It was invented by the media. They thought it was clever,” she reflects on the “Seinfeld curse” in a new interview with Rolling Stone. “You don’t need me to prove it wrong, it was ridiculous! It made no sense. I was amazed that it had legs, because it was so moronic. I don’t know how else to say it!”
This isn’t the first time Louis-Dreyfus has dismissed the so-called curse, the most notable instance being when she definitively put the term to bed by winning an Emmy for The New Adventures Of Old Christine in 2006. “I’m not somebody who really believes in curses, but curse this, baby!” She declared in her acceptance speech.
Prior to that, the term cropped up due to the successive (relative) failures of Louis-Dreyfus’ sitcom Watching Ellie, Michael Richards’ The Michael Richards Show, and Jason Alexander’s Bob Patterson and Listen Up! These one- or two-season enterprises led to speculation that the Seinfeld alums would never do anything as successful as Seinfeld again, i.e., the curse. Never mind that few television series ever created could be as successful as Seinfeld.
Larry David himself called the curse “the most idiotic notion” in a 2009 Esquire interview. When asked if he thought it was real, he replied, “Are you crazy? It’s so annoying to hear something like that. There was no curse. It’s crazy. So there were two TV shows attempted that didn’t work? Big deal. How many TV shows work?” Confronted with the fact that Alexander was at one point a KFC spokesperson, David said, “Well, he’s entitled to make a living. But a curse? It’s so absurd.”
As for Jerry Seinfeld, he joked on Watch What Happens Live in 2012 (via DigitalSpy) that he likes “anything named after me,” but stated, “There never was a ‘Seinfeld curse’, because [co-creator] Larry David’s done so well. I’ve done well… the New Adventures of Old Christine, Julia won an Emmy, so, curse fans, sorry, it’s over.”
These sound denials occurred before Louis-Dreyfus was launched further into the stratosphere with Veep, thus soundly disproving the Seinfeld curse once and for all. As for her other co-stars, Alexander had a thriving theater career before and after George Costanza, in addition to continuing to appear in film and television. Michael Richards’ career decline can be attributed to, well, other reasons. And Jerry Seinfeld is Jerry Seinfeld. Let David’s words be the final ones on the subject: “It was the most absurd, silliest, stupidest thing to say that there was a curse.”
27 Comments
Uh, hello? Duckman?I’ve never even heard of this thing. I actually think it’s pretty rare for people to star in more than one sitcom, or at least it was during the nineties and aughts. Even graduating from TV to movies isn’t very common. Popular shows produce actors who don’t have to work anymore if they don’t want to, hence almost everyone from Malcolm in the Middle disappearing from Earth upon its completion. The only shows that produce lots of big stars are ones that get cancelled far too early, which is why Freaks and Geeks produced an entire class of Marvel heroes and villains
What’s the deal with curses? Are they the same as cursing? I once had someone put a hex on me and I said “Hex? That’s almost a curse word!” I mean what the heck’s going on here? If someone put a hex on you, you’d be in a helluva predicament.
fuckin’ A!
Practice safe hex, kids.
Bum deedum Bum Bum Bum Bumbum
“And Jerry Seinfeld is Jerry Seinfled.”
He literally is not.
He is when he runs away with super-speed.
George Santos has entered the chat.
It reminds me of when someone asked Joseph Heller why he hadn’t written anything as good as Catch-22 again, and he replied, ‘Who has?’
i’ll do you one better and say no curse has ever been real because there is no such thing.
Except the Glee one. That’s real.
Well, how about that guy who played Tim Whatley in that “anti-dentite” episode? I bet his career went nowhere.
I heard he was in some sitcom with a bunch of kids, but who knows if he went on to do anything particularly beloved or groundbreaking after that.
Heard he got really into meth. Very sad.
Yeah, and that 12-stepper never ended up doing anything significant after Seinfeld.
I mean it’s not shocking that none of them would be in anything as successful* as Seinfeld after Seinfeld, but the media has to dumb everything down as far as possible, so it became durrr Seinfeld curse!.*Please note I specified “successful”, and not “beloved” or “long-running” or “funny” or “saved an innocent guy from a murder rap”. (Okay that last one only applies to Larry David, who wasn’t technically “in” Seinfeld.)
“(Okay that last one only applies to Larry David, who wasn’t technically “in” Seinfeld.)“Au contraire! He was the voice of Mr. Steinbrenner, and he was the man in the cape. Probably others, but that’s off the top of my head.
Let’s not forget the newsstand guy.
Looks like your standard sarcastic newsstand guy to me.
I honestly feel like saying she was “launched further into the stratosphere” with Veep is almost underselling her massive success considering she won a whopping six Emmy’s for her performance. If Fleabag hadn’t been such a hit she probably would have won the seventh, too.
Remember the A.I. Seinfeld everyone liked for a week before it turned shit? Was that the curse?
*chuckles* That is so Elaine.
It’s like the whole “a show about nothing” thing.I remember pundits talking about how it was proof the public must be stupid if the Number One Show on TV was “a show about nothing”.They were to stupid to realize that was just a joke from the show.
I wouldn’t write off the curse that quickly. How many sitcoms has Keith Hernandez been in since ‘Seinfeld’?
One wonders why reporters are still asking her about it, 2 decades later; seems really lazy reporting. I understand it from the AVClub, but The Rolling Stone used to have actual journalism.
that was a really really really long time ago. For the most part they just had Taibbi doing his shitty Hunter Thompson tribute act for years.
The only curse afflicted upon the Seinfeld gang is The Curse of Steinbrenner’s Tomb.