She may be best known for her role in the US comedy Seinfeld, but the actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus is now the star of another hit TV series, Veep. In the political satire, created by the Scotsman Armando Iannucci, Louis-Dreyfus plays Selina Meyer, the ambitious Vice-President – “V.P.” or “Veep” – of the United States. The actress has won multiple awards for the role, including six Emmys.
Saturday Night Live
Born in New York, Louis-Dreyfus began acting in college and became part of a prominent theatre group in Chicago, Illinois. When she was 21 she got a job as a comedian on the TV show Saturday Night Live, but it was her later role as Elaine Benes on the series Seinfeld that made her a star. The show centred on a group of friends in New York and ran from 1989 to 1998. It became one of the most popular comedy series in US history.
The Curse
After the series ended, Louis-Dreyfus starred in a TV show called Watching Ellie, but it was cancelled. The other stars of Seinfeld also had difficulty finding success on other shows, which led to a theory that there was a “Seinfeld curse.” Louis-Dreyfus disproved this theory in 2006 when she featured in a comedy show called The New Adventures of Old Christine. She won an Emmy for her role in the series, which ran until 2010.
Meyer and Trump
Louis-Dreyfus’s biggest success since Seinfeld, however, has been Veep, which has continued to achieve high ratings after Iannucci left the show at the end of season four. In 2012, when it was launched, audiences loved the crude and clumsy Selina Meyer – not at all what you would expect of a Vice-President. By season six, however, real-life politics had changed, and there were comparisons made between the character of Meyer and Donald Trump – although the show’s current producers deny any link. Veep is now in its seventh and last season. What happens to Meyer, who wants to be President, will be watched with great interest around the world.
Universal Healthcare
Louis-Dreyfus herself is not a fan of Trump and is very critical of his lack of support for universal healthcare. A day after receiving her 11th Emmy Award in September, the 56-year-old actress announced on Twitter that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer. “One in eight women get breast cancer,” she wrote. “Today, I’m the one… Let’s fight all cancers and make universal healthcare
a reality.”
