Julia Louis-Dreyfus confessed to the hurt she still carries 40 years after her father called to insult her performance on "Saturday Night Live" in a recent Variety profile. According to the actor, the call came during her first season on the late-night variety show. Still new to show business and stardom, the comments cut all the deeper. "I remember him saying something really negative to me," the "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever" actor said. "He didn't handle it properly, and he wasn't gentle. His complaint was that I was too big, too broad. I was devastated by that."
Her father's cutting comments may have stung her all the more when coupled with the doubts Louis-Dreyfus still harbored regarding her own capabilities in those early years of her career. She noted, "I had no understanding about performing in this new medium," and during the interview refused to pinpoint which sketch her father had disdained enough to phone her up and vent his opinion over. But if she agreed with her father's assessment deep down, she wasn't willing to let him know it. Asked whether she ever told him, Louis-Dreyfus replied, "No, he was such a narcissist, I didn't even consider that."
Regardless of her father's tactless stage notes, Louis-Dreyfus was undeterred in her trajectory through Hollywood, soon taking her iconic role on "Seinfeld." Following the massive success and cultural impact of the "show about nothing," Louis-Dreyfus took various roles before her award-winning turn as politician Selina Meyer in HBO's biting political satire "Veep." And while she certainly didn't go down as one of the all-time cast members of "SNL," she did make a triumphant return to Studio 8H when she hosted in 2006.
