How Julia Louis-Dreyfus' Experience On SNL Helped To Shape Seinfeld
By Matthew Martinez
In an interview with Vanity Fair, Julia Louis-Dreyfus revealed that after "Saturday Night Live," she set a goal for herself to only accept jobs that were fun. "As simplistic as that sounds, that's not something that's always so easily attained," Louis-Dreyfus said.
Much of the fun of "SNL" was due to the collaborative environment among the cast and creators. It was a similar atmosphere on the set of "Seinfeld" where, if a more comedic line or way to present the material was presented, the latter option was used. Louis-Dreyfus thrived in this type of setting and accepted the enjoyable challenge of putting her own flair on the character of Elaine Benes.
"If it made us laugh, it made it into the show," Louis-Dreyfus said. "So that was true of rehearsal, it was true of the writing process, it was true of improvising. And we were just trying to make each other laugh, and that was a really good, shall we say, equation for a kind of excellence."
Such a light-hearted environment also allowed Louis-Dreyfus and Jerry Seinfeld to form a close off-screen friendship, which remains strong. He even honored his former co-star in 2018 when she received the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor (via YouTube). That same year, Seinfeld told ET, "She was the sparkle of the show that really made it the right chemistry, the right formula. Without her, I really don't think the show would have been successful."
