Julia Louis-Dreyfus is laughing about the time she had to eat Death. Sitting in a Manhattan restaurant, waiting for her poached-eggs-no-home-fries, she’s talking about her role as a fiercely protective mother in her new movie, Tuesday, a visual effects–filled drama in which Death takes the form of a mystical parrot. At one point in the mother’s quest to protect her terminally ill daughter from the bird, she stuffs its entire body into her mouth. Louis-Dreyfus actually chewed black cotton candy to create the moment. And you know what? “It was delicious.” Julia Louis-Dreyfus Net Worth
Most funny people will say that where there’s laughter, there’s usually pain. Louis-Dreyfus—who reportedly has a net worth of $250 million, according to Celebrity Net Worth—knows the reverse is also true. Even while she explores new emotional depths in her work, with no less than mortality as her co-star, she can’t help but find the funny. It turns out, you can take the girl out of the comedy, but you can’t take the comedy out of the girl.
The actor with an epic Emmy haul has been instrumental in creating a new era of screen humor, the kind built on horrible people not realizing how horrible they are—Elaine Benes kidnapping a dog, Selina Meyer sabotaging her daughter’s wedding—that kind of thing. As she exposes the truths inside human foibles, she creates characters so indelible that it’s hard to believe they’re not out there at this very moment, making somebody miserable.
Louis-Dreyfus’s latest project is “Wiser Than Me,” her first podcast and her most personally revealing work yet. She wants to know how to think about old age before she gets there. So every episode, she gets schooled on life by self-actualized women in their 70s, 80s, and 90s.
With Mick Jagger rooster-strutting into his 80s, Martha Stewart splashing on the Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover, and a “Golden Bachelor” making his journey on TV, her interest is well-timed. “Wiser Than Me” was No. 1 on Apple’s overall U.S. podcast chart for nearly a month after launching in April, according to the show’s producer, Lemonade Media.
At 62, Louis-Dreyfus is still in her second act but eager to learn about the third, bringing on guests such as designer Diane von Furstenberg, 76, singer Darlene Love, 82, and comedy icon Carol Burnett, 90. The old ladies are talking, she’s listening, and the show’s a hit. Julia Louis-Dreyfus Net Worth
Here are a few things Julia Louis-Dreyfus revealed to WSJ. Magazine…
Louis-Dreyfus on taking on podcasting, as well as roles in more serious projects:
Now the comedy icon is bringing her singular point of view to more serious projects involving questions of marital strife, family tragedy, and the wisdom of older women. The turn reflects, in part, where she is in her life right now.
“I have a lot of experience and I can bring it to bear,” she says. “And I’m really interested in trying new things.”
Louis-Dreyfus on how her cancer battle has informed her life:
It’s been five years since Louis-Dreyfus finished treatment for stage-two breast cancer. She used to feel immortal, she says, but not anymore. With the relief of remission comes a determination to make her next years count.
“I find myself living more mindfully,” she says. “It’s not like it’s yakking at me all the time, but there’s more laser focus.”
Carol Burnett, one of Louis-Dreyfus’s idols, on comedians being better at drama:
“I think it’s a misperception about comic actors, whether it’s female or male, that that’s all they can do, which is obviously not the case,” Burnett tells me. “Comedic actors actually do better at doing drama than a dramatic actor does comedy.”
Louis-Dreyfus on using the same approach to both comedy and drama:
“The approach to it is actually, believe it or not, quite similar,” she says. “You’re trying to find your own truthful way into the story.”
Louis-Dreyfus on taking another comic role if a good one came along:
The problem is supply. “They’re hard to come by,” she says. On her podcast, she has talked about the joys of “ ‘laughing at a funeral’ kind of laughing,” where the fact that laughing is not allowed only makes it funnier.
Louis-Dreyfus describes the sensation of getting a laugh as a performer:
“It feels like scratching a very—a really deep itch,” she says. “Like you’ve got an itch in the center of your back and you can’t quite get it, and then you get it, and it’s like, ‘Ahhh.’ ”
Louis-Dreyfus on her reluctance to open up on her podcast:
But podcasting demands a level of intimacy that many other mediums don’t. Plus, she’s asking her guests to open up to her, and the best way to build that trust is to do the same. “I’m a little hesitant about it, I will admit. I’ve guarded my privacy pretty ferociously in a lot of ways.”
Louis-Dreyfus on Wiser Than Me guest, novelist Isabel Allende’s revelation in the episode that she enhances her sexual experiences by consuming a marijuana chocolate blueberry for the event:
“I was completely delighted by her response,” Louis-Dreyfus tells me. “And I think the marijuana-blueberry market was as well.” Julia Louis-Dreyfus Net Worth
Brad Hall, Louis-Dreyfus’ husband and podcast collaborator, on her new phase:
A number of her guests talk about the importance of risk-taking later in life. It’s a tip from the front lines that Louis-Dreyfus already has internalized. “I think that’s her phase right now,” Hall says of his wife. “She’s done an awful lot of funny TV, and other things are interesting her right now.” It’s not what her fans are used to. “There’s an expectation going into anything that she does that hilarity will ensue,” says Hall, adding that “it doesn’t have to be funny with Julia.”
Louis-Dreyfus on learning of her cancer diagnosis in 2017:
There are moments when tragedy and comedy get put in a blender, and Monday, September 18, 2017, was one of them. Louis-Dreyfus and Veep had triumphed at the Emmys the night before. By morning, her doctor was on the phone telling her she had cancer. The first thing she did after hanging up was double over with laughter. “I mean, it felt like it was written. It felt like it was a horrible black comedy,” she says. “And then it sort of morphed into crying hysterically.”
She was terrified. “You just simply don’t consider it for yourself, you know, that’s sort of the arrogance of human beings,” she says. “But of course, at some point, we’re all going to bite it.”
Louis-Dreyfus on finding humor through tragedy:
Now here she was that much older, facing surgery and chemo. In the months that followed, she made a list of complaints, basically the unhelpful things people said to her, or the gifts they gave. All the appalling stuff that might be ripe for mockery.
“I liked to put things on that list that I wasn’t supposed to say out loud,” she says. “A complaint list, you know, the specifics about things that were happening to my body that I wanted to write down, things that were happening, you know, when I was in chemo and what was happening to my body as a result of that. It’s just, like, horrible. It’s medieval. And then people do say it comes from a positive place, but sometimes people say incredibly remarkable things that are inappropriate.” She can’t find the list, but she’d like to. “I think you might find it funny,” she says. “That’s all I’m saying.” Julia Louis-Dreyfus Net Worth
Watch…
Read the full article here.
Photos: Max Farago for WSJ. Magazine.
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