Julia Louis-Dreyfus: 'The really ridiculous thing is that I am just as good at drama', Mark Twain Award - 2018

18 October 2018, Kennedy Center, Washington DC, USA

Thank you. Thank you very much, thank you very much. Thank you so much. Stop, okay sit. Thank you. Thank you very much.

When Mark Twain first emailed me about the Mark Twain prize, I have to admit I totally misunderstood. I assumed that I was being asked to honour somebody else who was receiving the Mark Twain prize and I thought, oh my God what a hassle. I mean seriously, who would put me through this to have to go all the way to Washington D.C. which no offence, is a nightmare and make up flattering things to say about how funny someone else is. No fucking way.

And then I reread the email and I realised oh, it's me. They're giving it to me. I get the prize and my attitude about the whole thing changed. It really did. I don't know, honestly. I really don't know what I was thinking, this is a great night and a great honour and in beautiful Washington D.C. no less. Anybody would be lucky to be a part of a night like this honouring somebody like me, right?

As a great fan of the work of Mark Twain I was so sorry when I recently learned he was dead. My thoughts and prayers go out to the whole Twain family, especially the wonderful Shania. Unfortunately the President of the United States couldn't make it tonight either, even though he lives in the neighbourhood Mondays through Wednesdays.

I am so lucky to have been on television doing comedy for more than 35 years, isn't that ridiculous? The really ridiculous thing is that I am just as good at drama. Yeah, I'm going to tell you a little story, it's a little trivia. The very same week that I got cast in Seinfeld I was being considered for the juicy little part of Portia in director Sir Peter Hall's Broadway production of The Merchant of Venice. Apparently I didn't get the part since someone else eventually played the role on this stage and of course I'm happy that I didn't get that part because if I had I would have never have played Elaine on Seinfeld and without Seinfeld I would not be here today. So it worked out great, totally fabulous no regrets here, none at all. None whatsoever.

Anyway I think it's time for me to get into some serious thank yous. Abbi and Ilana thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule. Just to be completely clear, I gave an excellent audition for Merchant of Venice, okay? I mean just objectively speaking now. I nailed it, okay? So I'm just a little confused as to why Peter Hall didn't cast me. That's all, that's all. I'm not upset obviously because I love comedy and I love my career. So, where was I? Oh, yes, yes, yes. Keegan oh, my god Keegan-Micheal Key thank you so much for being here on my special night …

Look Sir Peter Hall might have made a mistake, okay. My audition was Portia's speech about mercy. You all probably know the scene. I mean obviously I am not gonna perform it right now because that would be a pretty weird tangent to hear Shakespeare intelligently and energetically performed in a middle of a comedy tribute to me, so.

Camille thank you for being here. It is so inspiring that you were able to co-opt your wife's harrowing medical ordeal for an Oscar nomination. Bryan Cranston you are a truly incomparable talent and a pleasure to work with. When I think of us on Seinfeld …

Look I'm just gonna do it. You want to hear it, right? I can do Shakespeare, okay.

The quality of mercy is not strained, it dropeth as a gentle rain from heaven upon the place beneath. It is twice blessed, it blessed of him that gives and him that takes.

Thank you. Thank you. And Stephen Colbert, my fellow Northwestern alum, thank you so much for being here. You are my every night hero when at 11:35 a nation turns its lonely eyes to you, woo, woo, woo.

Stephen used to play a manic conservative and now he plays a depressed liberal - that is range ladies and gentlemen. It is so great to see Lisa Kudrow here, setting me up just like in the old days when Friends would set up Seinfeld and just like in the old days Jerry's got all the money. And my darling dear, sweet Tony Hale. If I weren't already married and Bryan and Keegan weren't already married and if you weren't already married then I'd definitely get your opinion about any guy I was dating before marrying him.

And Tina Fey you are a comedy genius whom I admire above all humans. Tina was honoured with the Mark Twain prize too before they got real serious about who they give these things to. And thanks to my wonderful neighbour Jack Johnson. I was going to make a joke about Jack Johnson but for the love of god can't something remain sacred this evening?

And finally to my wonderful friend Jerry Seinfeld. I learned a lot from Jer over the years, principally the importance of hard work. Jerry killed himself to make Seinfeld good. He and Larry David worked so hard it is actually it is impossible to describe and they didn't just do it to make the show successful because once it was successful they worked even harder. And I hope a little of that rubbed off on me.

I grew up here in Washington D.C. back during the quaint old fashioned rule of law period. Being funny was a big part of my growing up. My great grandmother Bessy was the first person I remember telling jokes. She was in her 90s and I was really little and she would do these extremely repulsive impressions of her first grade teacher having life-threatening seizures. At least I think it was an impression. Anyway, either way I realised now that it was offensive and she was way, way out of line. But when I was five years old, hilarious stuff.

My mom and dad got divorced when I was three, also hilarious. My mom is actually here tonight with 80 of her closest friends. Last year I was lucky enough to get an Emmy Award for my performance on Veep which was an incredible thrill and it set some kind of a record for the most Emmys by somebody for doing something or other and then about twelve hours later I was diagnosed with cancer, another hilarious turn of events. I'm only half kidding, of course cancer isn't at all funny, but a big part of dealing with it has been finding the funny moment. The old cliché about laughter being the best medicine turns out to be true which is good because that's what the current administration is trying to replace Obamacare with.

When I was getting my hideous chemotherapy I'd cram a bunch of family and friends into this tiny treatment room with me and we really did have some great laughs. Of course I was heavily medicated and slipping in and out of consciousness so I was probably a pretty easy audience. But my point is, is that laughter is a basic human need along with love and food and an HBO subscription. There's no situation, none that isn't improved with a couple of laughs. Everybody needs laughs so the fact that I've had the opportunity to make people laugh for a living is one of the many blessings that I have received in my life. Okay.

According to Wikipedia I have two sons Charlie and Henry. When you're a working mother, oh, you really worry about the time spent away from your kids. You try your best to be there as much as possible, but the truth is, is that you miss stuff and you worry that they're gonna get all screwed up and suffer all kinds of angst and neurosis when they grow up and then you get the Mark Twain prize. I got to say it's worth it.

I'd also like to acknowledge my cherished husband Brad Hall who I didn't just marry because his name sounds like Peter Hall and it kind of felt like I was getting the part, no. Brad never fails to show up at events like this, this very one he puts on a suit, he puts on a smile and is the most supportive and present spouse in the world. No, nope, no. Yes thank you.

Thank you so, so much dear Brad. Thank you. And finally thanks to Mark and Mrs. Twain and to everyone who has participated in this exhausting evening. Thank you so much and good evening and thank you.

Related content: Tina Fey, Mark Twain Award Acceptance, 2010

“I never dreamed that I would receive the Mark Twain Prize for American Humour. Mostly because my style is so typically Austrian.”

Larry David: "I not only hate writing the shows, I hate all kinds of writing", WGA Awards, Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award - 2011

2 February 2011, East Coast ceremony, New York City, USA

Jason Alexander: I first encountered Larry David — this is true — at the Improv Comedy Club in New York City in the mid 1980s. The man was introduced as a comic. He lurched out onto the stage sweating and profoundly uncomfortable, launched into some diatribe about the improper use of the tu form over the usted form in the Spanish language, and after — I kid you not — a minute and a half of incomprehensible banter about "Et tu, Brute?," he accused the audience of being ignorant, euphemisms of the female anatomy, threw down his microphone, and stormed from the stage.

    To my amazement, less than a few years later, I would attain heights of fame and fortune I had never imagined by playing a character who was a thinly disguised alter-ego for that very same man. And I thank God for that blessing every day.

Larry David: Thanks Jason, it was really sweet of you to do this, although I have no doubt I'll be getting a call from you in the next few weeks asking me to do something very distasteful in return. "Larry, my wife's doing a save the poultry event, she'd like you to be the guest speaker. I think you owe me I gave you the Paddy Chayefsky Award."

I also want to thank my pal, the brilliant Larry Charles, for doing the thankless task of making that video. I don't know who the guy is he's talking about, but I'd like to meet him, sound very cool. Okay, to the matter at and. First off, I just like to say to Paddy Chayefsky, I'm really, really sorry. Please don't blame me, I had nothing to do with it. Apparently some of the same people who made the decisions about our last strike were also involved in this. So don't take it out on me.

And if it's any consolation, I won't put the award where anybody can see it. I'm thinking basement. So maybe when they come to fix the pipes, the plumber might spot it, and if he asks me what it is I'll just tell him it's from bowling. What's really ironic about this whole thing is that I hate writing. Nothing puts me to sleep faster than picking up a pen. Within minutes, I'm out cold.

I not only hate writing the shows, I hate all kinds of writing. Recommendations, thank you notes, excusing my daughter from school, condolence letters ... Oh those are the worst. Any expression of sympathy. I'd rather blow my own head off and make probably have to write them to me. And, of course, this speech.

As soon as I found out about the award, I immediately called the Guild and asked them what the shortest speech on record was for anyone who's ever been given this. Its ruined my life for the last two months. Not five minutes have gone by without me saying to myself, "You stupid schmuck. Why did you do this?" I actually started resenting the Guild for choosing me. It's almost like they did it on purpose just to accept me. It's like a sick joke. It's not funny.

I'm only sorry my mother is not alive to be here tonight because there's no doubt she would have stood up not shouted, "Larry? Are you sure? You're giving an award to Larry? Morty, they're giving an award to Larry." Her great dream for me was to become a mailman. Her dream. That's her best-case scenario. "If only my boy could deliver the mail. Please God, that's not asking too much, and wear a uniform."

She literally begged me to take a civil service test. "Please Larry, take the test." She was like Rod Steiger in On the Waterfront begging Brando to take the money in the cab. "Please take the test. Take the civil service test, take it, take it." I said, "No." She said, "What are you going to do?" And I really didn't know. At the time I was supporting myself by driving a limo for an old lady who was half blind and had no idea that I wasn't wearing the uniform and that the car was filthy.

I did that for a year, and then one night I went to the Improv, saw a bunch of comedians, and I thought, Jesus, theses people seem just like me. They're complete losers who do nothing and get up and talk about how miserable they are. Are you kidding? I can do that. And it had the bonus of sounding like a cool thing to say to impress women when they ask what I did, although I soon discovered that was not the case at all. I could have said I was a mailman and done just as poorly.

I told my parents about wanting to be a comedian and my mother said, "You're not funny, Larry. I've never heard you say anything funny." And my father backed her up, "She's right, she's right. You're not funny. Why do you think you're funny? You're not funny." So, I started doing it, but as Jason alluded to, I was not all that successful. My therapist at the time said I wasn't really temperamentally suited for it for the simple reason that if the audience didn't laugh I would scream and curse them.

"You stupid, fucking morons. You don't know anything!" I remember even walking the streets in New York looking for good spots to live in case I ever became homeless. I would mentally note them. Yeah, yeah, 44th between 5th and 6th. Good steam vent, there's an overhang. I got to remember this. I bombed all the time. Got heckled unmercifully. People threw things at me. I wallowed in self-pity. "Why me? Why? Why can't I do anything? I don't understand. It's not fair."

And then in 1988, Jerry Seinfeld asked me to develop a show with him. I'd never written a half hour before. I didn't even know the format. The number of pages, I had no idea what I was doing. I prayed for the show not to get picked up. Doing one was hard enough. How could I possibly do 22? It was impossible. I thought of all the half hours on television. All of the one hours. How did the writers do it week after week? Even the bad shows I was admiring, just for the fact that they got gone. When it got picked up I cried. I thought, "Are they insane? Why are they picking up this show? What is it?"

Then after a few weeks, I remember I was filling out a form in the doctor's office, and in the space next to occupation, I put in writer for the first time. That made me feel really smart. Oh, Jesus, I'm a writer. Holy shit, this is very cool. Although, who knows, maybe if I filled in mailman I would have felt just as good about it.

Now as much as it pains me, I'm going to be a little gracious, even at the risk of boring you. I have to thank Chris Albrect and Budd Frieman from the Improv, and Rick Newman from Catch a Rising Star, who consistently gave me spots in New York even though more often than not I turned the crowd into an angry mob. Rick Ludwin from NBC who stuck his neck out to get Seinfeld on the air. Of course Jerry Seinfeld, without whom, I'd probably be sitting on that steam vent on 44th street, screaming obscenities at passers by. Everything I wrote he improved.

I could so say the same for Alec Berg, Jeff Schaffer, and Dave Mandel, who've done such great work on Curb these last few years and the main reason I continue to do it. The remarkable Seinfeld cast. It's unbelievable. When I did these things in real life, I was scorned, mocked, and shunned. When they did it on the show, people laughed and loved them.

And the incredible Curb cast who helped me enact my revenge fantasies with such aplomb. Chris Albrect again, for putting Curb on the air and allowing a bald man to star in a comedy for the first time since Phil Silvers played Bilko. Of course, he is bald, so maybe it wasn't such a big deal. And the current HBO team of Richard Plepler, Mike Lombardo, and Sue Naegle, who give me whatever I want. I only hope I don't spoil my children the way HBO has spoiled me. And finally the writer's guild for this award.

But you know, there's a disturbing element surrounding this. I've noticed that whenever something good happens to me, it's usually followed by something terrible. And this thing has got disaster and doom written all over it. I mean it's a great honour but it's not worth getting hit by a bus. So, thank you Writer's Guild for the death sentence. I only hope I live a few more months to enjoy it. Thank you.

Jerry Seinfeld: 'I love advertisting, because I love lying', Clio award acceptance - 2014

1 October 2014, New York City, New York, USA

I am excited to win this. This is the award they give you when they don’t think you can actually win one, but they think you’ve done a pretty good job and seem to have been around for quite some time, and that’s how I got it.

I would like to thank Ogilvy & Mather and American Express for getting me into this business. That was the first time I did it. I would like to thank my manager George Shapiro, my incredible wife Jessica, and Ammirati for keeping me going.

I love advertising, because I love lying. In advertising, everything is the way you wish it was. I don’t care that it won’t be like that when I actually get the product being advertised, because in between seeing the commercial and owning the thing, I’m happy, and that’s all I want. Tell me how great the thing is going to be. I love it. I don’t need to be happy all the time. I just want to enjoy the commercial. I want to get the thing. We know the product is going to stink. We know that, because we live in the world, and we know that everything stinks. We all believe, hey, maybe this one won’t stink. We are a hopeful species. Stupid but hopeful.

But we’re happy in that moment between the commercial and the purchase, and I think spending your life trying to dupe innocent people out of hard-won earnings to buy useless, low-quality, misrepresented items and services is an excellent use of your energy. Because a brief moment of happiness is pretty good.

I also think that just focusing on making money and buying stupid things is a good way of life. I believe materialism gets a bad rap. It’s not about the amount of money. Nothing’s better than a BIC pen, a VW Beetle, or a pair of regular Levi’s. If your things don’t make you happy, you’re not getting the right things. This will all be in my new book, Soulful Materialism, which is in the planning stages at this moment.

I have always wanted a Clio. I don’t know much about it, but I know it’s a good award, because in 1991 they screwed up this whole presentation, and there were a bunch of awards left over, and all of these ad people here climbed up onto the stage and tried to grab them. To me, that says this means something. That really happened, and it’s my all-time favourite award show occurrence because it was so honest.

People just said, I want a damn Clio, and they went for it, and that is why I am happy right now. I got this. I didn’t really win it, but I got it. And tomorrow, I don’t know where this is going to be. It’ll be somewhere. Eventually I’ll be dead. Someone will just take it or sell it or throw it out. That’s fine. I’m happy now. The same way those executives were in 1991 when they ran onto this stage and grabbed trophies that weren’t theirs. But it trumped up their phoneycareers and meaningless lives.

Thank you all for this great honour and for all your great work. I hope it makes you happy as you have made me happy for this five minutes of my life, which will last until I get to the edge of this stage, and it hits me that this was all a bunch of nonsense.

Thank you, and have a great evening.

Jerry Seinfeld: 'All award shows are stupid,' HBO Comedian Award - 2007

2 April 2007, California, USA

At moments like this I would like to quote my good friend Carl Reiner, who has often said to me: “You don’t give awards to comedians”. First of all, comedians don’t need awards, awards are for people that are looking for work, we’re not looking for work. If you’re any good as a comedian, you’ve got tons of work. We’ve all got wrinkled suits and smelly shirts from packing and unpacking and schlepping all over the goddamn country doing 10 million different kinds of gigs.

And secondly and even more important is your whole career as a comedian is about making fun of pretentious, high minded, self-congratulatory B.S. events like this one. The whole feeling in this room of reverence and honoring is the exact opposite of everything I have wanted my life to be about. I – I – I really don’t want to be up here. I want to be in the back over there – somewhere over there saying something funny to somebody about what a crook this whole thing is.

And I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. I don’t want you to think that I’m not honored by this, because I’m, I feel very, very honored, and it’s – but it’s just that awards are stupid. Every real estate office has some framed, five-diamond president’s award thing by the desk, every hotel check-in has some gold circle service thing; every car salesman is a platinum jubilee winner. It’s all a big jerk off. It is, the hotel sucks, the real estate person is stupid, and the only thing the car salesman is good at is ripping you off.

And why? Because awards don’t mean a goddamn thing. It’s stupid, they’re all stupid. All of the award shows on TV. Honestly, it’s beyond me that we feel the need to set aside a night to give out these jaggoff bowling trophies six times a year, so all these people can pat each other on the back about how much money they’re making; boring the piss out of half the world. And if I hadn’t already won all these awards, I would not be talking like this.

(applause)

The truth is that the comedians should be the only one getting awards. We’re the only ones that have to actually think of something original and funny, and interesting to say, you know, how hard that is? Do you know how hard it was just to write what I’m saying to you right now? It was hard, this took a long time, but we can do it, we can do it.

(applause)

I’m just you know, sick of all these actors and you know, I don’t know why we’re so fascinated with actors in this culture. They haven’t got a thought in their stupid bed-head hairdo mini brains. Why are – we must honor this man, why? He pretended to be Bob Johnson. He is a genius, I tell you, it’s genius what he is doing, playing dress up and pretend is not genius ladies and gentleman, it’s not genius.

Roll the cameras, put on these clothes, stand there ready? Say what we told you to say! Fantastic, he did it! Give this man a huge golden trophy, he is a goddamn genius, walking down the red carpet in these ridiculous outfits like they are senators from Krypton, it’s just so stupid, but what can I do, I have to thank HBO, I have to.

All comedians, every, these three guys and me, oh, HBO, we owe them, that’s why they are here. You think these guys want to do this, they don’t want to do this, they owe. They gave me a one-hour HBO special, they were the first people that ever thought I should be on TV for more than six minutes. And I was introduced on that show by Carl Reiner.

And I don’t, you know, so that’s it, what can you say about it. And I’m very proud of this and it’s a thrill, I hope they do it again next year, this could be it, I don’t know. But this is a great, important, incredibly, you know, sweet thing and meaningful thing in my life. Thank you very much HBO and thank you all for coming.