Want to spark a heated debate? Just ask a Seinfeld or Veep fan which is better: Julia Louis-Dreyfus young or Julia Louis-Dreyfus now — if you can even tell the difference.
The almost magically unaging actress not only looks the same as she did back in the Seinfeld days but also brings as much spark to the small screen, maybe more. She’s seen wild success with the dark comedy Veep, in which — in case you’ve been living under a rock the past six summers — she plays hilarious crude and slightly incompetent Selena Meyer. But Veep season 7, which will air on HBO in 2018, will be the show’s final season and her last hurrah as the foul-mouthed TV favorite, she revealed to Tim Goodman at The Hollywood Reporter.
Though the sound you hear is Veep fans across the country wailing, neither Julia Louis-Dreyfus nor her fellow executive producer David Mandel see this timing as anything other than the right choice for the HBO series. It was leading to natural end, they both seem to agree, and neither wanted to force more seasons just for the show to continue.
“It became clear that this season should be the last season,” Julia Louis-Dreyfus explained. The ending felt like it belonged. “We don’t want to repeat ourselves or wear out our welcome. The story has a finality to it that feels end-of-series,” she added. Mandel reiterated how this decision was the best for the integrity of the show: “We don’t want to repeat ourselves or be boring,” he said of the decision. “It’s bittersweet but it’s right,” he added.
No can deny they’ve had a good run: The dark political comedy received Emmy nominations for best series six consecutive seasons, topping off that sterling reputation by taking home the award the last two in a row.
With all that Veep success, it’s easy to gloss over the standout comedic career Julia Louis-Dreyfus has achieved at only 56. Click through the slides in the gallery above to look back at Julia Louis-Dreyfus young, and her career from those very first Saturday Night Live episodes to the role we’ve come to know and love as the supremely snarky Veep.
