Everyone needs a little bit of Leon—but not too much—even JB Smoove.

The actor, comedian, and writer for Def Comedy Jam and Saturday Night Live has become synonymous with his character Leon Black since he arrived on Larry David's semi-fictional doorstep in Season Six of Curb Your Enthusiasm. The character is hyper-confident, undeniably chill, and constantly running his mouth. He'd be obnoxious and crass if he weren't so damn lovable. And it's not a character devised in some writer's room—Leon Black comes right out of Smoove's mind, as Curb Your Enthusiasm is a largely improvised comedy series. So every bit of Leon—his one-liners, his mannerisms, and his good-bad advice—Smoove picks out of thin air.

That means the line between the two is very fine. Adding to the blurring of fiction and reality is Leon's new book, (JB Smoove gets an as-told-to credit inside the book cover). It's an advice book full of Leon's own "good-bad" advice, as Smoove calls it, full of gems like finding the right bed for sex and the difference between the pee-pee and the johnson. But it's very important everyone understands the distinction: There's a little bit of Leon in JB Smoove, and no JB Smoove in Leon. That's because, as Smoove makes clear, everyone should have a little bit of Leon in them. He's that bold voice in your head telling you to do something a little outlandish, maybe a little irrational—Freud would probably call him your Id.



In an interview with Esquire.com, Smoove explains his process for developing the character and his beloved catch phrases and why he threatened to slap Larry David during his Curb Your Enthusiasm audition.

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What's going (or not going) through Smoove's head while improvising.

I gotta go blank, man. There is no structure. There is no plan. Even when I do stand up. I hate going on stage with a plan because anything could happen. I base the things I do on what I see and what’s in front of me. Like, if it’s a certain kind of stage, if there’s a certain kinda microphone, certain kinda stool, the distance the audience is from me, the lighting—all those things determine so much in my stand-up show. The same in an interview, whether it’s Conan or Kimmel or Leno; we always have a pre-interview and I don’t stick to that shit. You gotta use your ears as much as your mouth, so for me I gotta listen to what people are laughing at and what they want at this particular moment and I give them more. Or what the fuck they want, see. If you sit there and you’re a robot, you’re locked in.

It’s like going to war. You’re there and it’s you and your general, and you put a map on the table and you say, "We’re going to attack the enemy from the east," and all your whole army lines up facing east and you start walking east and all of a sudden they came behind your ass. Then you’re like, "Oh shit, turn the fuck around, we fucked up, we fucked up." Now your general is in the back and he’s like let me through let me through. And everyone knows they put the motherfuckers who can’t shoot that good in the back. Now you all fucked up. If you had told everybody to prepare for any fucking thing that could happen, then they all in that mindset and the enemy could fucking fall from the sky and they gonna be ready. That’s what my process is. There is no process. I gotta go by instincts alone and experience, and I try to be as vibrant as possible when I’m doing that stuff. And I gotta make myself laugh. Saying something for the first time is the greatest shit in the world to me. I get a high off that shit.

"Saying something for the first time is the greatest shit in the world to me. I get a high off that shit."

He has a lot of ideas stored up for the right moment.

I think of crazy shit every day. What I do is I compile it. I compile a lot of stupid shit in my head. That’s what I do with Leon and Larry. I pick what Larry says, the predicament that he’s in, and I put it in Leon terms. It’s what Leon would do, not what JB would do. How would a guy who’s living in this dude’s house who feels like this Larry David dude is wrong as fuck? How do I tell him he’s wrong? There’s something cool about being free of mind and knowing what to say in the moment. I always say that there’s some Leon in JB, but there’s no JB in Leon.

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The story behind this season's famous "lampin" scene.

I’m gonna tell you something funny: I was in Larry’s office. Once in awhile I check on Larry, right. I had just came from the Hamptons where I went by my buddy’s store. He had a hat in his store that said "Lamptons." Now, "lampin" had been around for years, of course. You know, "cold lampin." And "Lamptons" means: "I’m lampin in the Hamptons." So I had the hat on and I popped into Larry’s office to say what’s up to that motherfucker. I sat down, talked to him for a little bit. See what’s crackin’. And I had my hat that said "Lamptons." And he was like “What’s Lamptons?” And I was like, “You’ve never heard the term 'lampin?' This hat means I’m lampin in the Hamptons.” And he started laughing his ass off. I said, "You need to catch up on your fuckin’ slang. Lampin is too old for you not to know what the fuck it is, Larry. You an old motherfucker, too." Then when we got on set I said I’m gonna hit his ass with the lampin. When I said that shit to him, his whole lip turned up a little bit. I took his ass down that lampin road. Then I told him the difference between chillin' and lampin. If you’re chillin', you could be standing up chillin'; if you’re lampin, you’re laying the fuck back. It’s hilarious to throw these at Larry.

His favorite time taking Larry by surprise in a scene.

In Season Six, when I hit Larry his ass with gettin' that ass. Larry didn’t know what fuck "gettin’ that ass" meant. And why would he? Why would an older Jewish man know what the fuck "gettin’ that ass" meant? He didn’t know what the fuck it was. And I had to explain it to him right there. Then I hit his ass with it ,and it’s legendary. And that’s the whole scene.

The most important lesson Leon can teach.

It’s gotta be pee-pee and johnsons, man. You have a pee-pee for a very short period of time in your life, then you graduate to a johnson. You gonna have that johnson for a long period of time. You gotta know how to move and shake with that motherfucker. You gotta know how to use it on a lady. You gotta talk shit with it. Your johnson is the pinnacle of what you are to become in your life. When you turn into an old motherfucker, it’s gonna turn back into a pee-pee again. You’ll spend more time with your johnson than anyone else in the entire world. Your johnson is what defines you. Everything derives from the johnson. It’s a metaphor for life. It’s all about how you conduct yourself after you graduate from the pee-pee and before you become the pee-pee again. That to Leon is what life’s about.

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Don't live your life by Leon's book of advice.

I didn’t want to write the book over Leon’s head. I know one of the things people love about Leon is that he knows what the fuck is going on with certain things that he can over-explain to you. I wanted to make sure the reader had that good-bad advice that he gives Larry. I always say about Leon: He ain’t wrong, he just ain’t right. It’s good to understand this book, but you just can’t live it. If you live by this book, it will fuck your life up.

"I always say about Leon: He ain’t wrong, he just ain’t right."

There's a difference between JB Smoove and Leon.

I think everybody should have a little Leon in them. Leon is a dude you take to fight a ticket or you want to pick some money up that someone owes you. You take him on a double date if you want to stir things up. He’s the one who is going to hide in the bushes and tell you things to say. Now, JB is a whole different animal. There’s a little bit of Leon in JB, because having a guy like that is beneficial. You need a shit-talker once in awhile.

Now, on the other hand, does Leon have any JB in him? I would say hell no. Leon don’t dress like JB. Leon don’t know how to conduct himself like JB does. There’s a big difference between these two dudes. I know how to turn my shit on and off. Now Leon, he’s a very particular animal. You can’t function with that shit forever. At some point, Leon’s got to get his shit together. As beneficial as he is to Larry to get out of bullshit, there is a threshold for this dude to get out. I appreciate you allowing me to stay in your house for four seasons but I gotta get my shit together.

There's a Leon spinoff series that Smoove wants to see.

You don’t know all you need to know about Leon. Leon could have money stashed somewhere. Leon could have so much shit going on that you never know because you don’t follow his every day antics. What I would like to see is a prequel of Leon before he came to Larry’s door. Like, who the fuck was he before he walked to that door and said, “Is my sister here?” How amazing would that be to see who the fuck he was? Aww shit, how amazing would that be? I would pay to see that shit. Did he abandon his apartment? Was he living with some chick?

Why he threatened to slap Larry in his Curb audition.

I always come into my auditions as the character. I didn’t know what I was going to do. All I knew was Curb was my favorite show. I always feel like you should know his mannerisms, you should know how he walks in a room, you need to know everything about that character before that character opens his mouth. When I walk up to Larry, I walk up to Larry as a big fan. But Leon—Leon is going to come in as Loretta’s brother. Leon ain’t no punk-ass dude. So, I walk into the room and I walk up to Larry and they said, “Okay JB, you’re going to improv with Larry directly.” But I was already in Leon mode. I was already holding my hand to my chest, I had already tilted my head a little bit, I had already swaggered up a little bit. So I said, “Larry, let’s do this shit.” That’s not something JB would do, but that’s something Leon would do. I said to Larry, “They want us to improv. I might fuck around and slap you in the face. I don’t know what’s going to happen.” He started laughing his ass off. He didn’t know what the fuck this guy was going to do or say. At that point Leon was born. It’s not for everybody, but I took a chance and walked into the room as the character. I thought I’d get the most out of walking into the room as the character.

Matt Miller Culture Editor Matt is the Culture Editor at Esquire where he covers music, movies, books, and TV—with an emphasis on all things Star Wars, Marvel, and Game of Thrones.

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