With ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ Season 10, Larry David is Coming for That Emmy

Awards Daily’s Megan McLachlan examines the Emmy chances of Season 10 of HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Crazy fact: Larry David has never won an acting Emmy for Curb Your Enthusiasm, and he’s been nominated six times.

Even crazier fact: Curb has only ever won two Emmys — Robert B. Weide for Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series (2003) “Krazee Eyez Killa” and Steven Rasch for Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Comedy Series (2012) “Palestinian Chicken.”

This is rather ludicrous for an HBO show that consistently receives nominations and has been around for 20 years. While Larry David earned two Emmys in 1993, including for Outstanding Comedy Series for Seinfeld and Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Comedy Series  for “The Contest” episode, he’s never won for playing his most iconic character—himself.

However, Season 10 of the series loosely based on his life could be the year he actually takes home Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series.

Curb Your Enthusiasm Season 10

Curb is the second series in just a few months’ time to tackle #MeToo (the first being AppleTV’s The Morning Show), and of course, it puts Larry at the epicenter, with his best friend/agent Jeff Green (Jeff Garlin) getting caught in the controversy just for looking like Harvey Weinstein. It’s also a season that boldly put its lead in a MAGA hat (of course, the joke being that when he puts the hat on, people like Phil Rosenthal magically don’t want to have lunch with him).

Considering that David has received nominations for lesser Curb seasons (like, Season 9), he’s certainly a shoe-in for a nomination for this season, which is a return to form. And could he actually win?

Right now, his Emmy competition appropriately involves Ted Danson (who’s also his romantic competition for ex-wife Cheryl in Season 10) for The Good Place, Eugene Levy for the final season of Schitt’s Creek, Michael Douglas for The Kominsky Method, Don Cheadle for Showtime’s Black Monday, and Anthony Anderson for Black-ish—all of which were nominated last year.

Likely 2020 Lead Actor Comedy Nominations

Anthony Anderson, Black-ish
Don Cheadle, Black Monday
Ted Danson, The Good Place
Michael Douglas, The Kominsky Method
Eugene Levy, Schitt’s Creek

2019’s winner, Bill Hader, is missing from this list, as Barry Season 3 won’t return in time for Emmy eligibility, which means David would take that spot.

Other Possible Nominations

Cheryl Hines has been nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for the show in the past, when her character was married to Larry. But since their divorce, she’s been reduced to a guest star, so it’s possible for her to turn up there.

But in terms of Guest nominations, Jon Hamm is the one most likely to score a nomination for his episode “Elizabeth, Margaret, and Larry”, where he plays himself doing research to play Larry David. Hamm basically becomes “Larry David Jr.” through the course of the episode, to hilarious results. He’s previously been nominated in the Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series category for 30 Rock and Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, so a nomination here looks like a lock.

Vince Vaughn could also turn up in the Guest Actor category for playing Freddy Funkhouser, Marty’s Funkhouser’s brother (Bob Epstein who played Marty passed away at the beginning of 2019). Freddy becomes one of Larry’s confidantes he plays off of along with J.B. Smoove, who deserves every award for this role, but probably won’t turn up in the already crowded supporting category.

The series itself should land an Outstanding Comedy Series nomination as well, as it has been nominated in this category every season except the first.

Locks

Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series (Larry David)
Outstanding Comedy Series
Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series (Jon Hamm)

Possibles

Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series (Vince Vaughn)
Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series (Cheryl Hines)

If David doesn’t win this year, it doesn’t look like Curb is going away any time soon, as it’s the show that just doesn’t die. It’s weathered divorce, death, and #CancelCulture. Even if Larry doesn’t want to do the show anymore, he might just stick around out of spite.

Season 10 of Curb Your Enthusiasm is available on HBO.