'Curb Your Enthusiasm' star doesn't like when people jokingly call him Harvey Weinstein: 'a terrible, horrible human being'

Raechal Shewfelt
Editor, Yahoo Entertainment

Jeff Garlin, who plays Larry David’s sidekick on Curb Your Enthusiasm, had no problem with a scene this season in which people mistake him for convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein.

“Larry David said to me, ‘Hey, you mind if we do this?’ And I got it,” Garlin said Tuesday on Los Angeles NPR station KCRW’s show Press Play. “Especially if I wear a suit and have a little grub on my face.”

Jeff Garlin says he's never actually been mistaken for Harvey Weinstein. (Photo: Dimitrios Kambouris/Getty Images)

Garlin said that, in real life, no one had actually mistaken him for Weinstein when they filmed the episode with the Weinstein reference, which aired in January.

“However, since that episode, people come up to me in the street and go, ‘Hey Harvey,’ and I think, ‘Why don’t you call me Adolf?’” Garlin said. “You know, what's worse than Harvey Weinstein?”

Garlin based his opinion on his own experience.

“I did a movie with him once, and he was the worst person on earth,” Garlin said. “I just think this is a terrible, horrible human being, and why would you think it’s funny that you walk up to me and go, ‘Hey, Harvey’? I understand why the episode’s funny, and by the way, I’m not upset when people come up and go, ‘That Harvey Weinstein thing you did was funny.’ But people will come up and go, ‘Hey Harvey, what are you doing here?’ as a joke…. And I go, ‘You’ve just proven you have no skill set to be funny.’”

Later, Garlin answered questions about the Curb Your Enthusiasm occasionally mentioning his size, which led to him talking about his struggle with his weight over the years.

“It’s very hard, but I have a unique way of losing weight. First off, I avoid sweets. But as far as everything else, I don’t pay attention,” Garlin explained. “You know what I do pay attention to? When I have feelings, I sit with them. That’s my diet plan. So when I feel bad, as opposed to eating something, I will sit in my living room, stare at the ceiling and feel like crap.”

Garlin, who also stars on the sitcom The Goldbergs, said he’s lost 75 pounds using this method.

“So is it hard? Yes. But the feelings are temporary. Are they five minutes? Are they five hours? Are they five days? Generally not more than that, unless there’s a tragedy of some sort,” he said. “But what I’m not gonna do is when I feel bad or good, have a cookie, have some ice cream, not gonna happen, hasn’t happened in two-and-a-half years.”

Garlin said he relies on transcendental meditation and Overeaters Anonymous to help him through. He described living this way as being “sober.”

Press Play host Madeleine Brand asked, “You call not overeating or obsessively eating sober?” to which he responded, “Yes, for me that’s sobriety.”

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