40 AMERICANWAY
FEBRUARY 1 2008
S T A R S T O R Y
But not JuliaLouis-Dreyfus. After the amazing success of
Seinfeld
,
she has continued to push for another hit, one that she’s finally
foundwithCBS’s
The NewAdventures of OldChristine
. Along the
way, she’s alsoused the “currency” of her fame towork forwhat she
believes in— saving the environment.
Sure, sure
, you’re thinking.
W
hat celebrity isn’tworking for the environment today?
Everything
and everyone is claiming to be greennow, it seems. But for Louis-
Dreyfus, this isno fadcause, and it’snot somethingshe’s just talking
about. It’s a cause she lives, evenwhen the cameras areoff.
Case in point: She is speakingwithme from the passenger seat
of herblackToyotaPrius inCalifornia. “Iget43miles to thegallon.
What’s not to love?!” Louis-Dreyfus says. “In California, you can
drive in the carpool lane if youhave the hybrid sticker, which I do,
For as long as she can remember,
Julia Louis-Dreyfus has been going
for the laugh.When shewas three,
she stuck two raisins up her nose,
attempting to coax a chuckle from
hermother andgrandmother. “They
giggled,” she says. “Thenmymom
said, ‘Take them out.’ But I sucked
them upmy nose, andwe had to go to
the emergency room.” Infifth grade,
shewas supposed to faint in a school
play. Itwasn’t supposed to be funny,
but itwas. She recalls, “I thought, ‘I
got a laugh. And it felt good.’”
She’s gotten that good feeling
— and those laughs— a lot in the
years that have passed since then. For
her onstage performances, the real
laughs started at NorthwesternUni-
versity inChicago. There, shemet her
future husband, BradHall, whowas
cofounder of thePractical Theater,
a groupwhose comedic productions
drewLouis-Dreyfus’s attention. Hall
did too. “He had strawberry-blond
Jesus hair and a beard, and I thought
hewas pretty cute,” she says.
While in college, Louis-Dreyfus also
joinedSecondCity, the famedChicago
comedy troupe and thebreeding
ground for future
SaturdayNight Live
stars. Shewas still anundergraduate
in 1982when shegot the call tomove
toNewYorkas an
SNL
castmember, a
job that lasted for almost three years.
Seinfeld
, in 1990, was the next
big stop— the biggest stop, in fact.
In her eight years on that show,
Louis-Dreyfuswon anEmmy, aGolden
Globe, four ScreenActorsGuild
Awards, andfiveAmericanComedy
Awards. And she got cursed too. All
themajor stars of
Seinfeld
metwith
failure in their initial outingswithout
Jerry by their side, leading theTV
press to decide therewas such a
thing as the
Seinfeld
curse. And they
mentioned the curse a lotwhen Louis-
Dreyfus’s firstmajor post-
Seinfeld
outing, a2002NBC series called
WatchingEllie
, was canceled after
less than two full seasons.
The curse came up in reviews again
when
TheNewAdventures of Old
Christine
debuted onCBS inMarch
2006. But this time, the cursewas
broken. In her new show’s first year,
Louis-Dreyfuswon anEmmy for Out-
standingLeadActress in aComedy
Series.What’s just as important is
that the show is still on the air, now
entering its third season, and that
CBS seems solidly behind it. Thatmay
be evenmore the case this year, given
that, because of thewriter’s strike,
Old
Christine
is one of the few scripted
shows airing new episodes atmidsea-
son. Sowhat do audiences like about
OldChristine
?Unquestionably, part of
the draw is that Christine is not unlike
Seinfeld
’s ElaineBenes— clueless,
angry, andwacky, but in aweirdly
appealingway. “Christine is a bit of a
mess, kind of a dope, but she has good
intentions,” says Louis-Dreyfus.
The funniest thing about Christine?
The character is very unlike Louis-
Dreyfus. Consider: Christine is a ter-
rible environmentalist. “She tries to
be environmentally correct, but she is
constantlymakingmistakes,” Louis-
Dreyfus says. “She is not necessarily
as informed as she shouldbe.”
That’s amistake Louis-Dreyfus
would nevermake in her own life. But
when you’re going for a laugh, you’ll
do just about anything. And, after all,
playing amisguided environmentalist
is a lot easier than sticking raisins up
your nose.
and that sometimes isa tremendousasset,because traffic inCalifor-
nia is absolutely revolting.”At thewheel isherhusbandof 20years,
Brad Hall. A writer and a producer on such shows as
Brooklyn
Bridge
and
Frasier
, andmost recently, themovie
Must Love Dogs
,
hemetLouis-Dreyfuswhen theybothattendedNorthwesternUni-
versity,where theyworkedoncomedyproductions together, includ-
ing several that satirized environmental negligence.Healso starred
alongside Louis-Dreyfus during her three-year run on
Saturday
Night Live
. And today, Hall— a longtime environmental advocate
who grew up surfing in Santa Barbara andwho speaks proudly of
his “deep hippie roots”— is on the board of directors of the Envi-
ronmentalMediaAssociation.Thatgroup, founded in1989, tries to
use “thepower of celebrity” toboost environmental awareness.
LaughTrack
From
SaturdayNightLive
to
Seinfeld
tobreaking the
Seinfeld
curse, JuliaLouis-Dreyfushas
continued tofindways tomake
TVaudienceshappy.
Sowhatdoyoudowhenyou’vehadmegasuccess,whenyou’realready richand famousand
yourplace inTVhistory issecure?Mostactors in thatposition—and therehavebeenplen-
ty of them over the years—would likely do some guest-star spots on other shows,maybe
direct, and,well, simplygiveupon the ideaof securinganother starring role ina sitcom.
From top:
SaturdayNight Live
;
Seinfeld
;
WatchingEllie
;
TheNewAdventures of
OldChristine
