Larry Charles
Larry Charles at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival
Born	(1956-12-03) December 3, 1956 (age 55) Brooklyn, New York
Other names	Rene Fonatine
Occupation	Screenwriter, director

Larry Charles (born February 20, 1956) is an American writer, director, and producer. He is best known as a staff writer for the American sitcom Seinfeld for its first 5 seasons, contributing some of the show's darkest and most absurd storylines. He has also directed the films Borat, Religulous, Brüno, and The Dictator.

Early life and career[link]

Born in Brooklyn to a Jewish family,^[1] Charles performed stand-up comedy in the 1970s until he was hired to write for the short-lived sketch comedy show Fridays (where he worked with Larry David, who would later give him a job as a writer on Seinfeld and director on Curb Your Enthusiasm). This began a career in television writing that included The Arsenio Hall Show and eventually Seinfeld.

[edit] Seinfeld

Although series co-creators Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld wrote the bulk of the show's episodes during the first five seasons, Charles was their second in command during this period. Charles had met Seinfeld co-creator Larry David when he was part of the writing staff of the ABC sketch show Fridays, on which David and Michael Richards were also part of the show's ensemble cast.^[2] Charles had been unable to write for the show's first season, as he had been writing for The Arsenio Hall Show during its production.^[2][3]

Charles is noted for contributing some of the show's darker storylines and scenes. In the season 2 episode "The Baby Shower" Charles wrote a dream sequence in which the title character, Jerry Seinfeld, was killed. Charles' episodes also covered such controversial topics as Nazis (in "The Limo"), a psychotic stalker (in "The Opera") and a hospital patient committing suicide (in "The Bris"). A season-two episode he wrote, "The Bet", concerning Elaine buying a handgun to protect herself, was never filmed because NBC, some of the cast and the show's director felt the gun content was too provocative.^[4][5][6] Charles claimed that his writing on Seinfeld was heavily influenced by Dragnet, Superman and Abbott and Costello.^[7]

Charles said he was instrumental in the development of Cosmo Kramer; he felt that "Jerry and George were so well-defined through Larry David and Jerry, that there was less room for me to, sort of, expand on those personas. But Kramer was very unformed at the beginning of the show and it gave me an area of creativity to, sort of, expand upon. So I spent a lot of time with Kramer because he was a character that I could have an impact on in the future of the show".^[6] It was Charles who imbued in Kramer a distrust of authority (especially in his episodes "The Baby Shower" and "The Heart Attack"), and who created the character of Kramer's notorious unseen friend Bob Sacamano, after his real-life friend of the same name.^{[citation needed]}

Charles also has a cameo in the episode titled "The Parking Garage," which was written by David.

[edit] Mad About You

In 1995, Charles left the writing staff of Seinfeld to join that of another hugely successful mid-1990s sitcom: Paul Reiser's Mad About You.

[edit] The Tick and Dilbert

Charles served as executive producer on two short-lived programs, The Tick (for which he wrote two episodes), and the Dilbert animated series, which he co-developed with Scott Adams and co-wrote the following episodes:

[edit] Curb Your Enthusiasm

In 2000, Charles began his first job as a director, on Seinfeld creator Larry David's follow-up series Curb Your Enthusiasm. To date he has directed 16 episodes of the hit HBO show.

[edit] Entourage

Charles served as an executive producer and writer on the HBO show Entourage for the first two seasons. The episodes that he wrote were:

Film[link]

Charles's feature debut was Masked and Anonymous (2003) which he directed, and co-wrote with Bob Dylan (under the pseudonyms Rene Fonatine and Sergei Petrov respectively). The film has received a mixed reaction from audiences and critics alike. Charles maintains it takes many viewings to get true enjoyment from the film: "I want the movie to be like a great Bob Dylan song that is listened to over and over and for people to back and see it again and get a lot more things, or totally different things."^[9]

His second feature film as director, Borat, was more successful. In an interview, Charles discussed how, because of the nature of the mockumentary process, he had to act as well, even if none of his performance made it to the screen: "We all, especially me, had to play a character as well. I wasn't Larry Charles when we were on the road. We all had to be in character, and we had to balance that with our aesthetic and logistical needs to produce the movie properly [...] The director also had to act."^[10] The film was nominated for Best Motion Picture — Musical or Comedy at the Golden Globes.

Talking with fans outside TIFF premiere of Religulous, 2008

Charles's third film was Religulous — a documentary about Bill Maher's take on the state of contemporary religion,^[11] — which was released in October 2008.

Filmography (director)[link]

• Masked and Anonymous (2003)
• Borat (2006)
• Religulous (2008)
• Brüno (2009)
• The Dictator (2012)

Live performances[link]

Charles rarely performs live, but has appeared at Un-Cabaret and can be heard on several of their podcasts.^[12]

Further reading[link]

• Parker, Robin (31 July 2008). "Larry Charles: Anarchy in the USA", Broadcast Now, EMAP. Retrieved on 7 August 2008.

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Larry Charles

• Larry Charles at the Internet Movie Database
• Larry Charles on National Public Radio in 2008
• Larry Charles judged The Film of the Month competition in July 2009 on the independent filmmakers networking site Shooting People.