Jerry Seinfeld Talks Comedians in Cars, Why He Doesn’t Like Late Night Shows

Comedians in Cars pretty much goes Maverick:

There are no notes. I like the stuff that just comes up because I'm really curious. David Letterman loved that I asked Alec Baldwin, “Who do you think has worked harder to get where we are?” Now if you can imagine that conversation happening on a talk show in front of an audience, it stops right there. All of a sudden there's a “Whoa!” And I don't want to deal with that. I felt like the talk show needs its next iteration, and I don't know if this was it. This was a personal experiment of mine. Talk shows as we know them are performances, and so I wanted to try to do one without an audience, clips and something to promote.

 

He's not thrilled with the current state of late-night TV

I have to say that most talk shows leave me with a sad feeling, and I don't think that's the goal. When I was a comic in the 1980s, I was on the road somewhere every day, and I'd get back to the hotel and it was Carson and Letterman, and I looked forward to that all day. Those shows made me happy. I'm not quite sure what happened. It's probably just proliferation and fragmentation.

 

He's not interested in another “Seinfeld”

Most people want that, “What would it be like to have your own show? What would it be like to have your own show that's a hit? What would it be like to have your own show that's a critical hit, a popular hit and award-winning?” I don't have to wonder that. And any attempt I would make to duplicate that would surely be less than that. Who wants to go to worse and worse restaurants?

 

He'll probably never stop doing stand-up

If you're a surfer, you just want to surf. You don't know if anyone's going to see you, and you don't really care if they see you. You just live for that feeling. 

Read the full interview here

[H/T: THR]