Interview with Robert Weide

Director of 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' Robert Weide saw a kindred spirit to his Larry David character in Sidney Young, the anarchically inept protagonist of How To Lose Friends & Alienate People. We talk to him about making his first feature film, the comedy of humiliation and Monty Python.

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How did you come to the project? Was it through the Toby Young memoir?
I hadn't read the book when I read the script. The script was so well written, so funny and I loved the character of Sidney. I thought, I know this character, I know how to do this. I liked the romantic element. And the less comedic elements - the father-son stuff and the history with his mother. And it wasn't an easy book to adapt so I'm glad we got Peter Straughan for that - he used the core element of a British journalist coming to work on a magazine in New York, his relationship with his boss, bumbling one opportunity after another and he created all these other sub-plots around it.

Was there something in the character of Sidney and his experience of the entertainment industry that you could relate to?
The comedy of humiliation, which I have been dealing with on 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' and the fish-out-of-water element - yes, even in my own circumstances, for whatever success I have attained, I still always feel like an outsider looking in. Even at awards shows, even if I have won something, I'm always in the ballroom afterwards looking for the children's' table, which is where I have always felt I belonged.

As a kid I loved the idea of show business but as an adult I have no interest in celebrity culture. Sidney has this love/hate relationship with celebrity culture. He knows it's all rubbish but wants to be part of it, and once he is accepted he realises it's not all it's cracked up to be. Some of us realise this beforehand, which is good - it saves time.

Do you think Americans are more reverential towards celebrities than the British, who prefer to build them up only to tear them down?
We like to build them up to tear them down too. But I don't understand why they're built up in the first place. Nothing gives people more pleasure than to see Britney Spears crash and burn. I don't know why actors or singers can't just give that to the public and maintain their privacy. It's all about commerce - all these photos of people embarrassing themselves or eating in a restaurant or sunbathing nude - all these photos sell and people buy the magazines , so there'll always be motivation for the paparazzi to get those photos. It's a vicious cycle.

I found that living here for a year, you see the tabloids or the free papers and they're full of celebrity gossip. Here I am - this square guy sitting on the tube reading his 'International Herald Tribune' and looking around seeing people reading trash. It's sad that they dont choose an alternative. But it's easier to understand what's happened to Britney Spears than to understand what is happening in Iraq.

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