LOS ANGELES (TNA) – Susie Essman would be perfectly happy to sign a few autographs.

But some “Curb Your Enthusiasm” fans have different ideas when they meet the show’s princess of profanity.

“They beg me to curse at them,” says Essman, who plays Susie Greene, the foul-mouthed wife of Larry David’s manager, Jeff Greene. “They walk up to me in the street and they beg me to yell and scream and curse at them and call them all sorts of vile things.”

Susie Essman's fans can't curb their enthusiasm when they hear her curse on 'Curb Your Enthusiasm.'

It’s their way, apparently, of praising Essman for her performance in the hit HBO comedy.

But they wouldn’t ask Chuck Norris to lay them out with flying karate kicks, would they?

“It’s very bizarre,” says Essman, who’s also hosting the new reality show “Better Half,” which airs Wednesday nights on Bravo. “It’s not like I behave that way in real life. I’m just acting on the show.”

Still, there are times when Essman decides to honor the unusual requests.

“Sometimes I’m in the mood and I get it all out,” she says. “So I’ll just unload on them. My life has become very odd.”

Viewers will see a softer, gentler side of Essman in “Better Half.”

“That’s one of the things that I’m looking forward to about this show,” she says. “On ‘Better Half,’ I’m really just being myself. I’m looking forward to people getting to know that side of me, the not-screaming side of me.”

“Better Half” is a reality competition show in which one spouse is asked to master the other’s job.

The premiere features a couple of professional chefs trying to show their significant others the ropes in just 48 hours. Then the two novice cooks compete head-to-head, serving meals to more than two dozen restaurant customers. A $20,000 prize is at stake.

Subsequent episodes feature partners taking on their better halves’ jobs as hairstylists, fitness trainers, photographers, party planners and stand-up comics.

Even the couples who don’t win money, Essman says, seem to be rewarded with stronger relationships.

 “Every single couple we had said they understand so much better what their spouse does and how much stress it is and how hard it is,” she says. “That first episode, with the two chefs, they would come home complaining about a rough day and their ladies would say, ‘Well, how hard can it be? It’s just cooking.’ But then they had to do it and saw how hard it really is.”

Viewers at home can learn the same lesson, Essman says. So maybe, in its small, subtle way, “Better Half” will make the world a better place.

At the very least, it’s an example of reality TV that tries “to elevate,” as opposed to wallowing in backstabbing, bug-eating nastiness.

Essman professes to dislike so-called reality television. At most, she watches a few shows from the competition-driven genre, such as “Project Runway.”

“Is there a word we can use to describe this show other than ‘reality’?” she wonders. “One reason I agreed to do this was I felt it isn’t exploitive.”

Essman, a dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker, first made her mark in show business as a stand-up comedian. She has logged thousands of performances on the Gotham comedy circuit. To this day, she regularly headlines at Caroline’s Comedy Club.

Stand-up literally changed her life for the better, Essman says.

“I always wanted to be a comedic actress, but it never occurred to me that I would ever be a stand-up comedian,” she says. “It wasn’t that I thought I couldn’t do it. It just never occurred to me as a profession that I would do. It’s not like I had stand-up comedy role models growing up.

“But one day some friends kind of forced me to get up on stage. And once I did it a few times, I had one of those ‘a-ha’ moments where I realized, ‘This is the exact thing I’m supposed to be doing with my life.’ I had been ‘lost’ up until then: depressed, didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing, waitressing and in a bad relationship. But friends kind of forced me and that was it.”

In fact, Essman’s act during Jerry Stiller’s Friar’s Roast, televised on Comedy Central, was what caught Larry David’s eye when he was casting the role of Jeff’s wife on “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” now in its sixth season on HBO (9 p.m. ET Sundays). That performance convinced him that she could “handle the language.”

It’s hugely therapeutic to be so nasty on TV, she says.

“I go on the set and yell and scream and curse, over and over and over again, because we do so many takes, and at the end of the day my muscles are so relaxed and I’m so calm,” she says. “By the time I go back to my hotel and have a glass of wine, I’m so mellow.”

It’s worth adding, though, that Essman doesn’t really think Susie Greene is mean.

“You have to realize that almost every time she has a tirade, she’s provoked,” she points out. “So I wouldn’t say so much that’s she mean as she is extremely comfortable with her anger.”

Her favorite Susie Greene moment?

“There are so many, but I think my favorite episode is the one with the doll,” she says. “That’s the one where Larry puts the doll’s head down his pants and I’m standing in the driveway screaming at him to get me the head, get me the head, get me the head.”

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