“Our kids are the same ages, so
we relate to each other all the time
on the day-to-day stuff,” Lizer says.
“Frankly, we can really look like a
couple of silly idiots when we’re together, so we’re separating ourselves
during interviews.
Jokes aside, I think the show
works so well with her because it
wasn’t written with her as the star in
mind. We started with the character
first, then considered Julia for the
role. Once the two of us got together, I knew she was perfect. She
just instantly conveys the wit and
very human qualities that audiences
love. And she has no ego as an actress. She can look beautiful. She
can look awful. And that’s all part
of being a total professional for her.
She’s a beauty, but she leads with
her funny bone.”
of our familiarity and strengths. The
writers realized this and wrote to
those strengths. Today, I don’t know
if a network would give a show that
much time. But even after the fourth
season, I had no idea it would have
become this big. It’s gotten bigger
after it went off the air, by far. And
I think that’s because we ended it
when it was still great. Now that it’s
gone, it’s become much clearer as
to how special the show was. Things
are always clearer after they’re in
the past. That’s the way it works in
life, too.”
But ask her about her experi-
ence as a regular cast member with
another great American classic,
Saturday Night Live, and she admits
Louis-Dreyfus was the first female former cast member she regrets the initial experience.
to host Saturday Night Live. She had started building buzz in
Chicago, where she studied theater
at Northwestern University and hooked up with
AN AMERICAN CLASSIC the famed Second City ensemble. She earned raves
Louis-Dreyfus proves to be just as honest and un- while playing in the Practical Theatre Company’s
predictable in conversation. A seemingly irritated Toast of the Town production, so much so that SNL
Jerry Seinfeld once admonished a reporter by producers came to Chicago to scout her. They hired
saying, “You are forbidden to use the words ‘yada, her right then and there. It should have been a dream
yada, yada’ in this article. You are forbidden to say come true—Louis-Dreyfus grew up with the show
... ‘master of your domain,’ because if you do, you’re and its standard-setting original cast. She was joining
a total hack.” Not Louis-Dreyfus. She clearly states a group that included stars such as Eddie Murphy,
her great appreciation for the show’s accomplish- Christopher Guest and Billy Crystal, but the experi-
ments and its status as a great Ameri- ence was disappointing.
can classic. And if strangers drop the “It didn’t turn out to be what
occasional “Not that there’s anything I thought it was going to be,” she
wrong with that ...,” hey, that comes says. “I was really, really green,
with the reward when you win the coming right out of school. I had no
lottery in TV Land. experience as a stand-up. I didn’t
“Of course, I get asked all the arrive there with an assortment of
time about it,” she says. “I think it’s characters to work into the show. I
wonderful. People come up to me didn’t have a relationship with the
with ‘Yada, yada, yada’ and ‘GET writers. I thought it would be really
OUT!’ I’m delighted that they still an ensemble setting, but it wasn’t.
like the show. They ask me to do Seinfeld won an Emmy Award for outstanding comedy It was a very competitive environ-
The Dance, too. But that’s where I series in 1993. The show ran nine years. ment. And, frankly, it wasn’t a very
draw the line. I’m not doing that in pleasant place for women to work.
the middle of a supermarket aisle.” It was very male-oriented.”
As classic as the show is—it remains on the This was in the early to mid-1980s, when founding
Mount Rushmore of comedies, along with I Love producer Lorne Michaels was taking a break from the
Lucy, Mary Tyler Moore and All in the Family— show. Michaels has since returned and, fortunately, so
Louis-Dreyfus says she never got a sense of its fu- has Louis-Dreyfus—this time as an occasional host.
ture iconic legacy as it was happening. “Remember Without a trace of bitterness about her initial run, she
that it really wasn’t until the fourth season when hopes to fit in another SNL hosting gig this year. “The
Seinfeld broke out,” she says. “That’s when we re- atmosphere is so much better now,” she says. “The
ally started to know each other and take advantage show is much funnier than when I was on it. I have
