Julia Louis-Dreyfus initially thought she could 'muscle through' chemo treatments while filming 'Veep': 'I got really ill'

There was what Julia Louis-Dreyfus expected to happen when she underwent treatment for breast cancer, and then there was reality — the two didn’t match up.

“Originally, I had this idea, well, we’ll shoot in between my chemo treatments,” Louis-Dreyfus told the Washington Post ahead of being honored Sunday with this year’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor from the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. “We could do that. Chemotherapy. What? That’s what sick people get. The whole thing was so astounding. I thought I could muscle through it, and to a certain extent, I did, because we did have table reads of scripts every three weeks. But I got really ill, so I couldn’t have ever shot anything during that period of time.”

The Seinfeld alum revealed her diagnosis, which she received a day after winning her sixth consecutive Emmy for her role on the HBO comedy Veep, on Sept. 28, 2017. When she did, HBO delayed production of the comedy’s seventh and final season to give Louis-Dreyfus time to recover.

She made her happy return to Veep in August. Louis-Dreyfus told People that she was “feeling well” last month.

In the new interview, Louis-Dreyfus said she had never considered simply leaving her successful show. She enjoys comedy too much.

“I love making people laugh, and I love making people cry even, and I find the pursuit of a truthful performance to be deeply satisfying to my core,” Louis-Dreyfus said.

When asked if cancer had changed her perspective, the actress and voting rights advocate gave a thoughtful response.

“You know what, I can’t quite answer that, because I feel like I’m still a little bit in the throes of it,” Louis-Dreyfus shared. “Except what I would say about the fragility of life, as tropey as that sounds — I really do feel like, I guess people die. You go through life not considering the eventual reality that you’re going to bite the dust, and so is everybody around you.”

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