That Time Julia Louis-Dreyfus Got the Best Compliment From Hillary Clinton's Leaked Emails
We can confidently say that Julia Louis-Dreyfus is the finest comedic actress of her generation. Louis-Dreyfus just passed Lucille Ball-an all-time great-as the most-nominated comedy actress in TV history. And on top of that she's won Emmys for Seinfeld, The New Adventures of Old Christine, and Veep. Turns out the Seinfeld Curse was just a myth.
A new career-spanning cover story from The Hollywood Reporter details her insane dedication to the art of comedy even in her rocky early and post-Seinfeld years. Now, she's taken on a producer role in the fifth season of Veep, where she has her hands in everything to create one of the best shows on television. Here's what we learned from the story.
Hillary Clinton probably isn't a Veep fan.
In 2013, Louis-Dreyfus received a fan note from Hillary Clinton saying, "Hope you get everything you want as Veep-gun control, immigration, and education reform." But two years later, a batch of leaked Clinton emails revealed an exchange between the Secretary of State and her aide implying that she had never seen the show (Clinton also misspelled her name). Louis-Dreyfus wasn't offended. In fact, she took it as a political joke she couldn't have written: "I mean, it's perfect-just perfect," Louis-Dreyfus said.
This garbage election at least kept Veep going.
"Originally, this show was meant to be a political satire, and now I feel as if it's more a somber documentary," Louis-Dreyfus said. "Certain candidates say things, and if you were to lift the language and put it into our show, we'd get notes back from HBO saying, 'It's too broad, too over-the-top.'"
She knows the role of Selina Meyer is rare in Hollywood.
"This is not the kind of thing that's going to come along a lot," Louis-Dreyfus said. "I'm not interested in being the wisecracking this or that or the eye-rolling wife... Those roles are out there, and they've come my way, but I'm not doing that. I'm bored shitless by that."
SNL was a horrible place when she was a cast member in the early '80s.
"It was this very chauvinistic situation back then: very few women, lots of sexism, issues of sexual harassment and some really big-time drugs," she explained. "Of course, I was so oblivious. I just thought, 'That's so weird that that guy's sketch is 17 pages long and at the table read he's howling laughing.'"
Her first performance sent her to the hospital
At the age of three she stuck a bunch of raisins up her nose. She got the laugh, but also went to the ER. "I don't remember a time when I didn't want to perform," she said.
