{"id":484373,"date":"2026-05-14T13:56:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T13:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/484373\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T13:56:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T13:56:17","slug":"julia-louis-dreyfus-on-tangles-seinfeld-snl-in-cannes-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/484373\/","title":{"rendered":"Julia Louis-Dreyfus on \u2019Tangles,\u2019 \u2018Seinfeld,\u2019 \u2018SNL\u2019 in Cannes Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThough she did not grow up with parents in the entertainment business \u2014 her father was a businessman in commodities, while her mother worked as a teacher \u2014 Julia Louis-Dreyfus<\/a> wanted to be a performer from \u201cthe earliest age\u201d \u2014 as in very early.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI would even perform during nap time in nursery school, so I remember very vividly standing on top of my blanket and dancing and hoping people were going to be watching \u2014 and they were, by the way,\u201d she recalled.<\/p>\n

\n\tLouis-Dreyfus has had eyes on her ever since, and countless more are focused on the legendary actress this week as she\u2019s just touched down in Cannes for the world premiere of her festival selection, Tangles<\/a>, an animated film that she stars in and produced alongside Seth Rogen and wife Lauren Miller Rogen. Ahead of the world premiere on Thursday night, Louis-Dreyfus sat for an exclusive conversation Thursday morning with The Hollywood Reporter\u2019s executive awards editor Scott Feinberg for his award-winning podcast, Awards Chatter<\/a>, recorded live at Meta<\/a> House in Cannes.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs is always the case on Awards Chatter, Louis-Dreyfus participated in a career-spanning chat that opened with talk of her time in nursery school and finished with the emotional reason she\u2019s here in Cannes. Highlights in between included her time at Northwestern, becoming the youngest female talent ever to book a spot on Saturday Night Live, making history again with the iconic sitcom Seinfeld, cementing her legacy with beloved shows like The New Adventures of Old Christine and Veep followed by dramatic turns in Nicole Holofcener films and ultimately becoming a blockbuster star by way of the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe event kicked off with brief remarks from Meta\u2019s head of global creative strategy Ricky Van Veen. \u201cWe\u2019ve unofficially been involved in film for a while, of course, through conversations happening on Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp about film and emerging filmmakers putting their work on the platforms. It\u2019s nice to make it official this year. We\u2019re really honored to host this conversation at Meta House. I\u2019m personally very excited for it,\u201d he said of his company\u2019s high-profile impact this year at Cannes.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tScott Feinberg poses with Ricky Van Veen at Meta House on May 14, 2026.<\/p>\n

\n\tThen it was Feinberg\u2019s turn to get things going by welcoming Louis-Dreyfus to the spotlight <\/a>in the blue-colored room complemented by an array of Ray-Ban Meta glasses and VIP guests from the international<\/a> film community and industry insiders.<\/p>\n

\n\tSpeaking about her time at Northwestern, Louis-Dreyfus noted how she was still focused on becoming a performer, but she wanted to study at a university that had more to offer. \u201cIt was an opportunity to get a liberal arts education at the same time as studying theater and acting. But, ironically, all I focused on was the theater and the acting and then ultimately left after three years because I got a job to be on Saturday Night Live. So I was like, \u2018I\u2019m out of here,\u2019\u201d she joked.<\/p>\n

\n\tHer jump to SNL was quite the leap, in many ways. \u201cWith my then-boyfriend and now husband, but still boyfriend [Brad Hall], we were doing a show that was a huge hit in Chicago actually, with sold-out shows every night. The producers of SNL were told to check this show out, and they did,\u201d she recalled. \u201cIt was like one of those things that really feels like a fantasy, doesn\u2019t feel like it would happen in real life where they came backstage after the show and said, \u2018We want you to all come to New York and be on Saturday Night Live.\u2019 We didn\u2019t even audition. We just were offered this opportunity. It was pretty jaw-dropping.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn another stunner, Feinberg pointed out that Louis-Dreyfus, who was 21 at the time, was a member of the cast alongside soon-to-be comedy greats Eddie Murphy, Martin Short, Christopher Guest, Billy Crystal and more. But it wasn\u2019t an easy tenure. She said it was an \u201cincredibly competitive\u201d environment where actors were \u201calways scrambling to be seen, to be heard\u201d on a \u201cvery male-centric\u201d staff. Oh, and lots of extracurricular activities going on behind-the-scenes.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere were a ton of drugs going on. I was so naive that I did not realize this. We\u2019d have the table read and one sketch would be 17 pages long, which is too long for a sketch, and the writers who wrote it were going like [grinding teeth]. And I\u2019m like, \u2018Wow, they have a lot of energy.\u2019 It was a topsy-turvy time,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe found company, however, in future Seinfeld co-creator Larry David, who joined the staff during her third year. \u201cSo we spent a lot of time happily being miserable together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA few years later, after moving to Los Angeles and working on a couple of network shows, she read a script David had written called The Seinfeld Chronicles. \u201c[Elaine Benes] was not in the pilot and NBC didn\u2019t want to do the show, but then a guy named Rick Ludwin, who ran special programming at NBC, decided to somehow keep this show afloat and put the late-night programming budget into these four episodes. God love Rick Ludwin, he\u2019s passed away, but he was an incredibly wonderful guy, and we really have him to thank,\u201d she pointed out.<\/p>\n

\n\tShe also noted how unique the script was for its time. \u201cThe comedies on television had a familiar rhythm to them and this I\u2019m not saying anything negative, it\u2019s just was the case. This show did not. This show was sort of almost an anti-joke in a way,\u201d she explained. \u201c I recognized the difference on the page, and I thought, wow, this is wild. It\u2019s like my friends have gotten into the system and fooled everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLouis-Dreyfus detailed one particular fight that came out with a 1991 episode titled \u201cThe Deal,\u201d saying, \u201cThere was a big fat argument on set about that because Jerry and Elaine sleep together in that episode and they sort of make a deal about it. There was tension between creatives \u2014 actually, it was Castle Rock and Larry \u2014 about whether or not to turn this into a will they, won\u2019t they? Larry was livid. He did not want anything to do with the idea of romance, the cute, the sexy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFeinberg then asked Louis-Dreyfus about how she processed the show\u2019s end after nine seasons and 180 episodes. \u201cI was pretty grief-stricken. When you\u2019ve given your life and your brain and your heart to a project for a long period of time, to say goodbye to it, even if the timing is right to say goodbye, which it was, there\u2019s a deep sadness and loss,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve actually felt it with any long-term project that I\u2019ve happily worked on. But I was also a young mother at the time. I had a 5-year-old and a 10-month-old. And so it was a real big juggling act making the show and having these babies at the same time and as any working outside the house mother knows. And so I was eager to just get home.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tJulia Louis-Dreyfus at Meta House on May 14, 2026.<\/p>\n

\n\tLouis-Dreyfus found success on CBS with The New Adventures of Old Christine, a show that ran for five seasons and 88 episodes on what Feinberg pointed out was \u201ca pretty male-centric network,\u201d to which she replied, \u201cI think it still is.\u201d The network pulled to plug before it reached the milestone 100 episodes, which made it ripe for syndication, and Louis-Dreyfus has previously said they weren\u2019t treated well by CBS. \u201cLike shit,\u201d she added today. \u201cThey screwed us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLouis-Dreyfus then made her way to HBO in a partnership with Armando Iannucci on Veep, playing vice president Selina Meyer. Feinberg asked how growing up in Washington, D.C. helped inform the choice.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIn Hollywood and show business, you\u2019re selling a brand. The brand is yourself and you\u2019re trying to stay relevant as time goes on. For example, I\u2019m here with you right now trying to stay relevant,\u201d she quipped. \u201cAnd in politics, exactly the same is true. That I could relate to and as a woman who\u2019s getting older in the business or getting older in the world of Washington, D.C., it all seemed to make a lot of sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tShe added: \u201cI\u2019d also done a lot of political work and have subsequently and continue to do so \u2014 behind the scenes and meeting politicians and so on \u2014\u00a0and I grew up in Washington D.C., or I spent part of my childhood there. The inner workings, as I say, inside the beltway and the culture there, certainly that I understood in my bones.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSomething new to her bones was blockbuster work in the MCU in such films as The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Thunderbolts*. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNever seen anything like it. It\u2019s quite the machine,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat\u2019s so thrilling about being a part of that universe is to see it in action, to see the prop department, the skills that come to bear, the care and the intelligence that is needed to really do this work perfectly well \u2026 the amount of people that they employ and find to work on these films is mind-blowing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIt also requires a lot of signatures, she said. \u201cYou\u2019re signing an NDA every three and a half minutes. It\u2019s like working for the CIA or something.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tTo close the conversation, Feinberg and Louis-Dreyfus turned their attention to the Leah Nelson-directed Tangles. The story follows a young woman who is forced to return to the conservative small town where her bizarre family lives to take care of her mother as she battles Alzheimer\u2019s disease. The voice cast includes Louis-Dreyfus, Rogen, Bryan Cranston, Pamela Adlon, Beanie Feldstein, Sarah Silverman, Abbi Jacobson, Samira Wiley, Wanda Sykes, Adam Shapiro and Bowen Yang.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tA scene from Tangles.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCannes Film Festival<\/p>\n

\n\tTurns out the subject matter hits close to home for Louis-Dreyfus.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLauren Rogen sent it to me, and there\u2019s Alzheimer\u2019s in my family. My grandmother died of it and my mother-in-law is currently suffering with it and I understand the disease well and the toll that the disease can take on a family. I\u2019m living that as we speak,\u201d she said. \u201cI was immediately intrigued by this project too because it was based on this extraordinary graphic novel and the idea of tackling this subject through animation geared towards adults was so intriguing to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAsked what she hopes audiences take away from the film, Louis-Dreyfus said its a message that is both timely and urgent. \u201cUltimately, this movie is certainly about communication and being in community and the value of family. All of that is sorely needed right now, certainly in our country, and globally, you could argue. I\u2019m hopeful that this film, when people see it, they might take away a new way of approaching those they love during difficult moments.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tStay tuned to Awards Chatter<\/a> for the full conversation, and see an exclusive clip of the Tangles here<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJulia Louis-Dreyfus and Scott Feinberg at Meta House on May 14, 2026.<\/p>\n

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\t\t\t\t\tAtmosphere inside THR x Meta \u2013 Awards Chatter with Julia Louis-Dreyfus at Meta House on May 14, 2026.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAtmosphere inside THR x Meta \u2013 Awards Chatter with Julia Louis-Dreyfus at Meta House on May 14, 2026.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAtmosphere inside THR x Meta \u2013 Awards Chatter with Julia Louis-Dreyfus at at Meta House on May 14, 2026.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAbbi Jacobson, Sugar Lyn Beard, Samira Wiley, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Seth Rogen, Leah Nelson and Lauren Miller Rogen pose during the Tangles photo call in Cannes on May 14, 2026.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t(Photo by Andreas Rentz\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tJulia Louis-Dreyfus poses during the Tangles photocall.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t(Photo by Aurore Marechal\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Though she did not grow up with parents in the entertainment business \u2014 her father was a businessman…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":484374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[265],"tags":[190863,11519,18,117,19,1452,17,40260,1722,211827,128],"class_list":{"0":"post-484373","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-cannes-2026","9":"tag-cannes-film-festival","10":"tag-eire","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-international","14":"tag-ireland","15":"tag-julia-louis-dreyfus","16":"tag-meta","17":"tag-tangles","18":"tag-tv"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116573281100794447","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=484373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/484373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/484374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=484373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=484373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=484373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}