Louis-dreyfus — a new generation’s Lucille Ball
Seinfeld star also juggles Planes voice role, TV sitcom Veep and film Enough Said
A few things have changed since Seinfeld’s Julia Louis-Dreyfus last did a voice job for John Lasseter in 1998’s A Bug’s Life.
Lasseter, for instance, went on to become the all-powerful poobah of animated motion pictures at Pixar and Disney, and is the current champion of the latest effort, Planes, which opens Friday.
In Louis-Dreyfus’s post-Seinfeld phase, she headlined the popular sitcom The New Adventures of Old Christine for five years and is heading into her third successful season on the acclaimed political, satire Veep.
In other words, the actress has been keeping busy. Still, when Lasseter called to ask if she wanted to voice the Québécois plane Rochelle in Planes, she couldn’t resist.
“John has been a friend for a long time,” said Louis-Dreyfus from Los Angeles in an exclusive interview with Postmedia News.
“When he called to tell me about Planes and my part, I said, ‘Yes,’ before I even saw the script.”
She added enthusiastically: “I trust John and loved the story of an underdog, which this film is fundamentally about. And, of course, everything John’s involved in turns out to be iconic.”
In the 3D spin off of Lasseter’s 2006 Cars and its 2011 sequel, Planes is the comic tale of the insecure small-town Cessna prop Dusty Crophopper (voiced by comic Dane Cook). His dream is to become an international air racer but his lack of speed and fear of heights gets in the way.
When a veteran Corsair aviator Skipper Riley (Stacy Keach) assists Dusty in his preparations for the competition of his life, he comes nose-to-nose with the evil defending champ Ripslinger (Roger Craig Smith).
Louis-Dreyfus’s Rochelle shows up to add some French-Canadianstyle spice in the English-language version, but she admitted the voice blend was meant for laughs not cultural accuracy.
“I am not fluent but I can understand (French),” she said. “I actually did have to study a little. So let’s say Rochelle is speaking (English) in a dialect that is between French-Canadian and French. It’s French-ish.”
Whatever it is, Planes director Klay Hall was excited to have her on board and pleased with the flair she brought to her part.
“I really believe Julia is one of the great comic actresses,” Hall said. “I put her right up there with Lucille Ball because she can do anything you ask of her.”
Louis-Dreyfus wasn’t so sure she could match the I Love Lucy performer’s abilities, but she did have fun getting back into the recording groove.
While she acknowledged that the technical side of animation has been refined over the past decade, she said that performing the Planes sessions reminded her of A Bug’s Life.
“It’s still a long process and usually takes place over multiple years,” she said.
“But I love doing what you need to do to get it right, which means repeating one line 30 times in 30 different ways. It’s one of the challenges I adore.”
What’s she not so crazy about these days are the constant requests from fans and network executives to attempt a Seinfeld reunion.
Seinfeld and company, said LouisDreyfus, thought they had satisfied the demand by showing up on Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm mockumentary for a bunch of episodes, but not so.
Thanks to reruns and worldwide syndication, Seinfeld is more popular than ever — especially internationally.
“It is kind of crazy,” she said of the show’s popularity with a new generation. “We are being invited into the homes of so many new fans in so many new places.”
But she has the Veep sitcom to occupy her time, not to mention the difficult task of getting the comedy tone of the series just right.
In the HBO production, LouisDreyfus portrays the fictional American vice-president Selina Meyer who doesn’t always do or say the right thing while surrounded by a support staff struggling to keep up.
Based on the Armando Iannucci’s caustic BBC satire The Thick of It, the U.S. version is a little lighter but just as focused on skewering the excesses of public office.
“We are rehearsing and writing and we begin shooting Season 3 on the first week of September,” said Louis Dreyfus, who pointed out the Veep cast came together as quickly as the Seinfeld crew.
“We are a very close-knit group of people, further supported by the fact that we film around (Washington) D. C. and Baltimore and most of us live in L.A.”
For a change of pace, she can be seen on the big screen in the relationship comedy, Enough Said, which will premiere at this September’s Toronto International Film Festival and open theatrically Sept. 20.
She co-stars opposite James Gandolfini who died of heart attack in June at the age of 51. Both Gandolfini and Louis-Dreyfus portray divorced parents who fall for each other.
“His role is so far away from Tony Soprano,” said Louis-Dreyfus, referring to Gandolfini’s violent mob boss in the crime series The Sopranos. “He was a sensitive, kind and a caring person, and that’s the character he plays.
“I am so grateful that I was able to work with him.”