Julia Louis-Dreyfus Says ‘SNL’ Audition Was ‘Excruciating’: My Sketches ‘Died a Terrible Death’ in Front of ’20 Very Unfriendly Cast Members and Writers’

Julia Louis-Dreyfus appeared on the latest episode of the “Wiser Than Me” podcast (via People) and remembered her “excruciating” audition for “Saturday Night Live.” The Emmy winner joined the NBC sketchy comedy show in 1982 and appeared on three seasons. At 21 years old, Louis-Dreyfus was the show’s youngest female cast member at the time.

“When I was just getting started, I was part of the Practical Theater company in Chicago,” Louis-Dreyfus said. “The producers of ‘SNL‘ came to see the show and they loved it, and they hired all of us to come to New York and be a part of ‘SNL.'”

She traveled to New York City with three other “complete and total unknowns” in order to audition for “SNL” by performing the first act of their comedy show. Louis-Dreyfus remembered it bombed, as the group performed “under fluorescent lights in the middle of the day in front of 20 very cynical, unfriendly SNL cast members and writers. [They] already hated us because a bunch of their best friends had just been fired to make room for us.”

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“We never had a chance,” she added. “Sketches that had killed in Chicago died a terrible, terrible death that day. It was excruciating. think that humiliation influenced our whole ‘SNL’ experience for the next couple of years, to tell you the truth. I’ve learned a lot since that cringey day in a carpeted office on the 17th floor of 30 Rock.”

Louis-Dreyfus appeared on “SNL” with such famous cast members as Billy Crystal, Eddie Murphy, Martin Short and Christopher Guest. Speaking to Stephen Colbert in 2019, she called her three years at “SNL” a “pretty brutal time but a very informative time.”

“There were plenty of people on the show who were incredibly funny,” Louis-Dreyfus said at the time. “But I was unbelievably naive and I didn’t really understand how the dynamics of the place worked. It was very sexist, very sexist. People were doing crazy drugs at the time. I was oblivious. I just thought, ‘Oh wow. He’s got a lot of energy.’”

“I learned I wasn’t going to do anymore of this show business crap unless it was fun,” she added. “I don’t have to walk and crawl through this kind of nasty glass if it’s not ultimately going to be fulfilling, and so that’s how I sort of moved forward from that moment. I sort of applied the fun-meter to every job since, and that has been very helpful.”

Listen to Louis-Dreyfus’ full interview on the “Wiser Than Me” podcast here.