What is Julia Louis-Dreyfus doing these days?
—Gordon Oliver, Detroit, Mich.
She’s back on TV and hoping her new HBO series, Veep, will follow in the footsteps of Seinfeld or The New Adventures of Old Christine and become a hit. In this election year, Veep is timely, as in it the Manhattan, N.Y.-born actress stars as Selina Meyer, a woman who becomes vice president only to discover the job is nothing like she expected but everything she was warned about.
“She was a senator from Maryland, and she ran in her party’s race in the primary for the presidential nomination, and she came in third. So she’s a political challenger and aspirer in a big way, if such a word exists,” Louis-Dreyfus, 51, explains.
Veep has advisers from both sides of the aisle to examine the scripts to make sure they don’t stray too far from how real politicians operate, but the show is careful to never fly the colors of any specific political affiliation. It was a good fit for the two-time Emmy Award winner, who is no stranger to the political arena, having supported Al Gore in his 2000 presidential bid and Barack Obama in 2008.
“We spent a lot of time on Capitol Hill meeting people behind the scenes, and I also had the good fortune to talk with some vice presidents about their experiences,” Louis-Dreyfus says. “People were surprisingly willing to share, but even when they didn’t, what was not said was more interesting than what was said. It’s all fascinating.”
Found in: Celebrity Q&A
