Larry David, known for giving excruciatingly brittle interviews, sounds like he actually had a fairly chatty lunch with Financial Times reporter Matthew Garrahan, after some initial awkwardness following David's plan to ditch the date. To get the Curb Your Enthusiasm auteur into his comfort zone, the pair had to spend a lot of time talking about what fruits go well in a salad, before Garrahan could address, say, what projects David has coming up. By the post-lunch coffee (the two dined at LA Farm in Santa Monica), which comes late in the piece as it does in the meal, David is ranting about religion and the process he uses to write Curb Your Enthusiasm. It's good, funny stuff, belying the standoffish tenor David had established on meeting Garrahan, which sounds like a scene straight out of Curb:

“I was thinking about coming here and saying, ‘Oh, this is an interview? I didn’t know it was an interview! I thought you just wanted to have lunch.’ Then you’d go, ‘No, no, it’s an interview.’ And I’d say, ‘Oh my God. I’m sorry.’ ” He shrugs and shakes his head in mock surrender. “I would say, ‘I just can’t do it. There’s been a miscommunication.’ ”

Read the whole thing at the Financial Times.

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Adam Martin