Julia Louis-Dreyfus Recalls Her ‘Excruciating’ ‘SNL’ Audition

Veep star Julia Louis-Dreyfus recalled her most humiliating moment as a Saturday Night Live cast member on a recent episode of her podcast, Wiser Than Me.

Louis-Dreyfus was a cast member on SNL from 1982 until 1985. She served alongside Eddie Murphy, Martin Short, Billy Crystal, and Brad Hall, to whom she has been married since 1987.

“When I was just getting started, I was part of the Practical Theater company in Chicago,” Louis-Dreyfus explained on her podcast. “The producers of SNL came to see the show and they loved it, and they hired all of us to come to New York and be a part of SNL.”

Adding that she and her co-stars were “complete and total unknowns” at the time, Louis-Dreyfus recalled the group was forced to perform their sketches “under fluorescent lights in the middle of the day in front of 20 very cynical, unfriendly SNL cast members and writers who already hated us because a bunch of their best friends had just been fired to make room for us.”

Louis-Dreyfus continued: “We never had a chance. Sketches that had killed in Chicago died a terrible, terrible death that day. It was excruciating.”

Looking back, Louis-Dreyfus wonders if that meeting affected her entire SNL tenure. Louis-Dreyfus’ time on the show coincided with the five years in which series creator Lorne Michaels took an unceremonious leave of absence, leaving the show in the control of Jean Doumanian and Dick Ebersol. Though many famous faces came through SNL during Dreyfus’ time there, including Anthony Michael Hall and Robert Downey Jr., the 1980–’85 seasons are considered to be some of the series’ weakest.

“I think that humiliation influenced our whole SNL experience for the next couple of years, to tell you the truth,” the Seinfeld alum reflected. “I’ve learned a lot since that cringy day in a carpeted office on the 17th floor of 30 Rock.”

While it would be inaccurate to call it a career renaissance considering she never went anywhere, Louis-Dreyfus has been enjoying a magnified presence of late. In addition to her popular podcast, she has a key role as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine in Marvel’s Thunderbolts and several other properties, and is gaining awards buzz for her performance in the surrealist indie drama Tuesday.

You can listen to Lemonada Media’s Wiser Than Me here.