Curb Your Enthusiasm boss on tackling #MeToo and MAGA in the season premiere: "Nothing is really off limits. I think it’s just how you do it"

The Hollywood Reporter

Executive producer Jeff Schaffer explains how the HBO comedy was able to film Larry David wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat out in the open without it being spoiled -- and how he got the idea for Jeff Garlin being mistaken for Harvey Weinstein. "Here’s the thing for us: Nothing is really off limits," he tells The Hollywood Reporter. "I think it’s just how you do it. Any subject is totally fair game; it’s how you execute it. Larry is willing to address issues other people just might not want to touch at all, and I think there’s a very good reason for that, and that’s that he doesn’t care if you watch. There are so many people worrying about all the big things, and we’re built for the little things. But we also breathe the same air as everybody else, and we’re also creatures of our surroundings. We just look at all the really terrible stuff that’s happening in the world and think: 'What if that happened to Larry?'" Schaffer says "we had a total security concern" filming David with the MAGA hat out on the streets. "Because we really didn’t want to ruin that image, and we got really lucky — that would have been a huge spoiler," says Schaffer. "Larry told all the extras in the sushi restaurant to please not say anything, and everyone played along, which we were really grateful for. Larry in the hat is such a dissonant image. You realized when he put it on that you just never see a person in a MAGA hat in Los Angeles. It’s like spotting a double rainbow of intolerance. He wanted to wait until the last minute to put it on when he got on set, so it really had a good effect. It was like seeing your uncle the banker doing cosplay, it was bizarre." As for Weinstein, Schaffer recalled telling David that he expected Hallmark Channel to come calling for Garlin when the sexual harassment news broke. We laughed about that and then said, "Wait, why give this to Hallmark?" ALSO: Curb's Season 10 premiere proves it will never run out of ideas.