After a preview of his reunion with Julia Louis-Dreyfus on the season six premiere of “Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee†at the Vulture Festival on Saturday, Jerry Seinfeld gave the audience a firsthand account of what it was like to be on the Late Show With David Letterman finale — including what it was like to be the butt of one of the night’s funniest jokes. (“Thanks for letting me take part in another hugely disappointing series finale.â€) As he tells it, the writers were scared of giving Julia the joke, but they didn’t know that the only thing that matters to him is that it’s funny:
“I like all jokes. There’s really nothing else I care about except jokes, I don’t care who has them, whose feelings have to be hurt — if it’s a good joke I’m into it. And we actually fought hard for that particular joke; the writers had a different joke that Julia and I did not like and she came to me and she said, ‘I don’t know if this joke works,’ and I read the joke and I go, ‘No, that’s a bad joke.’ She had flown from L.A. to New York just to do the one line — we were really excited to be on that show. It was a really cool experience to be on Dave’s last show and I didn’t want her to go out there and tank. I’ve been at this awhile; you don’t always know 100 percent, but in this case I knew this is a loser, and so we went to the writers and it was quite a long negotiation and then they came up with this other line, which was sensational. I wonder actually now, I was thinking, Did they have that, or did they write that? Maybe they didn’t want to hurt my feelings. That’s what it may have been: that they had that joke and they didn’t want to hurt my feelings and then, of course, they don’t know I don’t have feelings.â€
Watch the full interview below: