Julia Louis-Dreyfus, 65, has revealed that the Seinfeld set was rife with conflict.
“Of course, yes, tons,” Louis-Dreyfus said on the Friends Keep Secrets podcast about interpersonal friction between the cast members. “I mean, it’s hard to do anything really well, and it takes a lot of work, and you’re gonna butt heads.”
Louis-Dreyfus starred as the outspoken, neurotic Elaine Benes on the hit show, lauded as one of the most influential sitcoms of all time. Dreyfus has earned 11 Emmy awards throughout her career, including one for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series for her work on Seinfeld in 1996 and six for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series for playing Selina Meyer on Veep.
Seinfeld, a “show about nothing,” aired for nine seasons from 1989 until 1998; its iconic moments have become mainstream references.
Most episodes of Seinfeld had a live studio audience, which Louis-Dreyfus said sometimes created tension by upping the pressure for performers. She added, though, that the energy an audience provided outweighed any stress it created.
“You know what it’s like to be in front of an audience,” she told podcast host Lil Dicky, who is also a comedian. “I mean, there’s energy that you’re living off of, and it infuses performance.”
“I think the audience got a kick out of it because you got to see, you know, how the sausage was made, and you also got to see rewriting on the fly,” she continued.
Creators Jerry Seinfeld and Larry David would also sometimes disagree, Louis-Dreyfus added, but they were strong collaborators overall. Spats in general arose over specific plotlines, like a “big fat argument” about the 1991 episode, “The Deal,” in which Jerry (played by Seinfeld) and Elaine sleep together and agree to remain friends.
“There was tension between creatives—actually, it was [producer company] Castle Rock and Larry—about whether or not to turn this into a ‘will they, won’t they,’” Dreyfus said on the podcast Awards Chatter in May. “Larry was livid. He did not want anything to do with the idea of romance, the cute, the sexy.”
Though Seinfeld became a major success, Louis-Dreyfus wasn’t sure about its potential when they first began filming.
“I thought it was really good. I thought, ‘Wow, this is so unusual,’ and then I thought, ‘The network is too stupid,’” she quipped. “‘They’ll never pick it up.’”
