Jeremy Piven Reveals How The Larry Sanders Show Changed TV Forever

Jeremy Piven hopped on The Rich Eisen Show and basically spent a few minutes giving The Larry Sanders Show its flowers. If you know the series, that tracks. If you don’t, here’s why he’s still talking about it decades later.

Fresh out of college, straight into the deep end

Piven had a handful of small film roles before Larry Sanders, then suddenly he’s a series regular playing Jerry, the show’s head writer. He says the gig turned into a master class on the job, and he intentionally played Jerry like a guy who didn’t think he was funny, which made the whole thing oddly tragic and, for him, a blast.

"I was right out of college and I understood immediately that I’m on the bench and that I’m witnessing greatness and that I need to soak it all up... [Garry Shandling] was an absolute genius. I was so lucky to be a part of that."

The show that fooled people into thinking it was real

One of Piven’s funnier memories: the set blurred the line between fiction and reality so well that some folks working around it actually thought they were making a real talk show. Not a bit. And while that says a lot about the production, it also explains why Piven’s main on-set mission was survival mode: don’t crack when Jeffrey Tambor is doing his thing two feet away.

As Piven tells it, the bar for not ruining a take was sky-high because, in his words, everyone on that show was crushing it.

How big a deal was Larry Sanders for HBO?

In Piven’s view, huge. He says the series helped kick off HBO’s original programming era. Whether you want to debate the timeline or not, the impact is obvious: the show set a tone that the network would ride for years. That raw, self-aware, showbiz-behind-the-curtain vibe? Larry Sanders planted that flag early.

Who it launched (or turbocharged)

• Jeremy Piven as Jerry, the head writer, finding his footing and his approach in real time
• Janeane Garofalo and Bob Odenkirk, both getting pivotal early reps before their careers took off in different directions
• Jeffrey Tambor as the human laugh trap you try not to look at if you want to keep a straight face

Still sharper than it has any right to be

The Larry Sanders Show wrapped more than 25 years ago, and it still feels ahead of the curve. The fiction-reality blend hasn’t really been topped. I came to it late and binged the whole thing a few years back; it plays like it was made yesterday. We’ve lost Garry Shandling and too many other faces from the show since, which stings, but the work holds. If you’ve never seen it, it’s time. If you have, it’s even better on a revisit.