Susie Essman makes a tirade feel like a reasonable response to Larry David. We rate her Susie Greene highly: the force of the performance stops him wriggling away, while its timing keeps the embarrassment believable.
Fi1m perspective
When Susie Essman launches into a tirade in Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000), Larry David’s explanations cease to be much use. As Susie Greene, she brings enough force to a disagreement that he cannot keep talking his way round it. We found the repeated quarrels in Curb Your Enthusiasm wearing at times; the programme keeps returning to disagreements, even with actors who can let a conversation become awkward without signalling that a joke is about to arrive. The laughs depend on when she pushes back and how firmly she means it.
Her route to that part ran through New York stand-up in the mid-1980s and small film roles such as Punchline (1988). David cast her after seeing her at a roast, and Susie grew from a recurring presence into a central character across the programme’s twelve seasons. That expansion makes sense: Essman gives the conversations somewhere to go when David’s evasions might otherwise become repetitive. She can change the pace without making the other actors seem to be waiting for their next cue.
She improvises within David’s parameters, which helps explain why the exchanges sound like arguments happening now. Jeff Garlin’s ease as Jeff Greene helps keep the disagreements plausible, allowing Essman to push harder without the scene becoming a separate comic turn. She also helps create Susie’s clashing wardrobe, which the character regards as high fashion. Her confidence in those clothes makes it easier to believe she would be just as certain of herself in an argument.
As the streetwise Mittens in Bolt (2008), she takes a related comic manner into voice work. Her recurring role as Bobbi Wexler, Ilana’s mother in Broad City, began in 2015 and gave her another setting for her comedy. The repeated quarrels can still become wearing, and Essman’s force cannot solve that on its own.
Biography
Susie Essman is an American comedian, actress, producer and writer. She is best known for playing Susie Greene on the HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm (2000–2024).
Essman began performing stand-up comedy in the late 1970s and made early screen appearances in the films Crocodile Dundee II (1988) and Punchline (1988). She trained at the State University of New York at Purchase, where she earned a BFA. Other credits include the voice of Mittens in the animated film Bolt (2008) and the role of Bobbi Wexler on Broad City (2015–2019).
She has been married to Jim Harder since 2008.
