Rob Reiner's Secret Final Role Debuts on HBO
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Rob Reiner filmed his final role as George Washington on Nov. 13 on the Universal lot for Larry David's HBO series, about a month before he was killed inside his home alongside his wife Michele; the cameo was kept secret until Episode 2 aired on July 3.
- Jeff Schaffer, who directed all seven episodes and co-created the series, told Variety the sketch was deliberately timed for Fourth of July weekend — the 250th anniversary — to let Reiner, an outspoken Trump critic, 'get the last laugh' against the president.
- In the sketch, Larry David, dressed in 1700s colonial attire, rattles off insults at a hypothetical future tyrant — calling him an 'insecure, lying asshole who would even cheat at golf,' saying he'd enrich his family and send troops into American cities — before Reiner's Washington concludes: 'We're fucked.'
- Jimmy Kimmel cameos as a fellow colonist, sarcastically defending the hypothetical president as someone who'd 'taketh the time to challenge anyone who dare make fun of him' like 'a big baby.'
- David required Reiner to shave his signature beard to play Washington — 'Rob was never without his beard, but he really wanted to do the sketch, so he shaved,' Schaffer recalled — and Schaffer and David were editing the segment just two days before Reiner's death.
- Reiner's son Nick Reiner has been arrested and charged with the murders of his parents; the production team swapped Reiner's Washington sketch for a different segment at the LA premiere, later deciding July 3 was 'the perfect time' to reveal it.
Why it matters: The sketch functions as Reiner's posthumous political statement, deliberately placed on the nation's 250th birthday to weaponize his death into a final Trump rebuke — a closing chapter on a decades-long public feud that gives HBO both a tribute and a holiday-weekend ratings moment anchored to a beloved actor-director.
