This past weekend, Julia Louis-Dreyfus—best known as Elaine Benes on Seinfeld and Vice President Selina Meyer on Veep—was honored with the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the John F. Kennedy Center, in Washington, D.C.
During the two-hour ceremony, which will publicly air on PBS on November 19, friends and colleagues that included Jerry Seinfeld, Bryan Cranston, Lisa Kudrow, Tina Fey, and Larry David made touching tributes not only to her illustrious career as in comedy but also to the fact that the 57-year-old overcame cancer in the last year.
“I gotta say, the lengths that she went to to get [the Mark Twain Prize], frankly I was a little surprised,” David said. “I mean, come on! That whole cancer thing? Cancer? Honestly, I gotta take my hat off to her. What a scam. It’s diabolical. I’m a little jealous I didn’t think of it, because that is right up my alley.”
Seinfeld also noted that the fact that fans found it believable that two exes would stay so close for nine years was all due to their IRL friendship.
“People bought it. They believed it. They believed the relationship,” said Seinfeld. “And I think it’s fair to say, the show went on to do very nicely. Here is how: I just really, really liked Julia. I could not get enough of her. I never said or did anything inappropriate, but that whole time, nine years, I was not acting. I couldn’t! I thought she was funny, beautiful, intelligent. Every single second I spent with her onstage and off—bingo, no acting required.”
But when Dreyfus herself took to the microphone, she used the opportunity to discuss something else entirely: now-confirmed Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, and the recent allegations of sexual misconduct by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford.
“I attended Holton-Arms, a girls school in the Washington area. It has been in the news lately,” Dreyfus said, referring to the fact that it was also Ford’s alma mater (though, given that Ford is six years younger than her, they would not have intersected when Kavanaugh’s alleged attempts to sexually assault her in 1982 would have occurred). “Back in fourth grade, as a matter of fact, I was in a very serious Holton-Arms production of ‘Serendipity.’ You know it’s funny with us Holton girls—I remember every detail of that play. I could swear to it under penalty of perjury. And yet, I don’t remember who drove me to the show or who drove me home. Or if Squee or Tobin were there. Or if Bart put it on his weird wall calendar.”
“This, by the way, is totally true and not some kind of subtle attack on our newest supreme court justice,” Louis-Dreyfus sarcastically quipped. “For God’s sake, the man has suffered enough.”
It’s not the first time that Dreyfus has publicly voiced support for Ford. In September, she was one of 600 Holton-Arms alumni who signed a letter saying, “We believe Dr. Blasey Ford and are grateful that she came forward to tell her story,” adding that it “demands a thorough and independent investigation before the Senate can reasonably vote on Brett Kavanaugh’s nomination to a lifetime seat on the nation’s highest court. Dr. Blasey Ford’s experience is all too consistent with stories we heard and lived while attending Holton.”
I was class of ‘79 & signed this letter. https://t.co/5ssttu9uzT
— Julia Louis-Dreyfus (@OfficialJLD) September 17, 2018
And, in October, she posted a tweet that made her thoughts on Kavanaugh even more clear.
.@SenCapito, as a fellow alum of #HoltonArms , please do the right thing by voting NO on Kavanaugh. #VoteNo #BeAHero #StopKavanaugh
— Julia Louis-Dreyfus (@OfficialJLD) October 4, 2018
And for more biting barbs hurled by the rich and famous, check out the Queen’s Surprisingly Candid Joke about President Trump.
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