According to Larry D**ID, who is partnered with Susie Essman on Curb Your Enthusiasm, big-screen legend Anne Bancroft has had some trouble with small-screen improvisation.
In general, Larry likes to pick comedians, so comedians are used to improvising. We've been doing that on stage," Essman said on Friday's The View'S Behind the Table podcast said of the show's main star. Appears across from her old friend Joey Behar.
When VIEW producer Brian Teta asked if any of the famous guest stars in the HBO comedy had struggled in the past with the show's improvisational nature, Essman made a shocking revelation.
Some actors are scared. Anne Bancroft, a funny, talented actress who married one of the greatest improvisers in the whole world," she said, referring to Mel Brooks, with whom Mel Brooks married until the Oscar winner's death in 2005. "She couldn't improvise on the side of the road. She said to Larry, 'Tell me what to say. I can't do that. Please tell me what to say. So, a wonderful actress like her, she doesn't have what it takes to do that. ”
Behal also came forward to praise the star of "The Graduate", who is also her friend.
I know her too. At one point she told me, 'I was horrified by 'Suppressing Your Passion,' Bejar added. "And, when you talk to her, she's so funny. ”
Anne Bancroft in Curb Your Passion. Entertainment Weekly has reached out to representatives of Curb Your Enthusiasm for comment.
Bancroft won the 1963 Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in The Miracle Maker, and she starred alongside Brooks in Containment Season 4, Episode 10, "Opening Night." The cameo was filmed a year before her death, and it would mark her last on-screen appearance.
Listen to Essman and Behar discuss Bancroft in the podcast above.