Cheryl Hines opens up about her work life and home life — and how they’re intertwined.
The Curb Your Enthusiasm star, 56, was interviewed by Alec Baldwin for his Here’s the Thing podcast — and talked about how Larry David, her on-off TV husband for over two decades, was behind her meeting now-husband Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“He introduced us — just because we were at the same event,” Hines said. “But then later Larry was like, ‘That’s a terrible idea. No, no, no — don’t get involved.’ Cut to we’ve been married for eight years” — exactly; their anniversary is Aug. 2.
Between them, Hines and Kennedy, 68, share seven children — she has one, he has six — and differing views of the world, at times. No greater example was on the heels of the environmental activist and attorney, who has become a loud voice in the anti-vaccine movement, compared COVID vaccine mandates to the Holocaust earlier this year.
And while she didn’t touch that topic, having publicly calling Kennedy’s remarks “reprehensible and insensitive” at the time, she spoke about how they learn from one another.
For her, he’s made her better understand the environment and the legal side of fighting corporations that are hurting people. For him, “I think I’ve taught him to I don’t want to say lighten up because he’s” more “funny and playful” than his public persona suggests, she began. “Hopefully I’m teaching him to check it at the door. Like don’t bring everything home. He’s invested in so many heavy causes that it’s like: ‘Oh man.’ Sometimes you just need to watch 30 Rock and get your mind off things.”
She added, “Sometimes I get so frustrated and I’m like, ‘Look, yes, we’re all dying of everything. Whatever you think is killing us, it is. It is. So let’s enjoy the night.'”
Hines admitted she found it “intimating” meeting the Kennedy clan when she first started dating her now-husband in 2012. However, she called them “much more welcoming and more personable than you could imagine.”
Hines shared stories from her career, dating back to her first job after moving to L.A. working as an unpaid intern going through headshots. She recalled her female boss’s advising her to “get a boob job” if she wanted to make it in the biz, but didn’t take the advice.
“At that time, I hadn’t even thought about it — and it did not seem like it was necessary,” she said. “I went home and started thinking about all the actresses that I really admired and whether breast size had anything to do with it. Like: ‘Goldie Hawn doesn’t have big ones.'” Ultimately she decided, “I don’t think those are the parts I’m going for. I’m not dying to be on Baywatch.”
Hines found her place performing improv and sketch comedy with the Groundlings, where future Friends star Lisa Kudrow was her first teacher. She also was director Rob Reiner’s assistant for two years. Then the Curb Your Enthusiasm audition — which sought an “unknown actress” to play David’s wife — changed her life.
“I said well how old is that guy? Isn’t he … old?” she recalled before meeting David, now 75. “I didn’t know anything about him.”
The audition wasn’t exactly smooth. Right before she walked in, the casting director warned her, “‘Don’t touch Larry. He doesn’t like doesn’t like for people to touch him.'” And also that the show was supposed to feel like a documentary, “‘so if at any point it feels fake … the audition will be over.’ And… here’s Larry.”
Luckily it worked out and they’ve been bantering for 21 years — and she hopes many, many more.
“I could do it every day, all day for the rest of my life,” she said.
