Julia Louis-Dreyfus is about to head back to host Saturday Night Live this weekend, but it sounds like her memories of her time as a cast member, from 1982 to 1985, aren’t very fond (just “fondly-ish,” she quipped).
In an interview with The New York Times, the Veep and Seinfeld funnywoman revisits the years she spent on SNL, revealing that it was a “very sexist environment.”
She claims women on the show at that time were not given equal treatment “at all.”
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“I didn’t do anything particularly great when I was there,” she asserts. “I did not come out of SNL as any kind of name.” Indeed, Louis-Dreyfus found her fame, years later, as Elaine on Seinfeld.
The actress says that since she’s gone back to host — this’ll be her third time — she’s noticed a definite change in treatment of female cast members.
“Since I’ve gone back, I can tell you it’s much more of an equal-opportunity environment,” she said, emphasizing that, from her perspective, TV is a much more accepting place for female actors.
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“Opportunity for women in television has increased,” she said. “It’s because the landscape has widened. More women got on the playing field. I’m certain that there’s more much more in television that can be done. And I’m trying to do it. But I’ve certainly seen it change in my lifetime.”
This isn’t the first time that a female SNL cast member has had a sexist experience on the show. At the end of 2015, Tina Fey made a guest appearance on Howard Stern’s SiriusXM radio show, and said at one point during her SNL run, castmate Colin Quinn called her a “c**t” in a voicemail message. (The two have since reconciled.)
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