Goodness, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, you’re 55. How do you find the strength to leave your house, never mind host Saturday Night Live? No worries; I am flush with sarcasm right now. The Veep star, who will host SNL with musical guest Nick Jonas this week, appeared in a promo ad that proved her age would probably be the butt of a few jokes. Exhibit A: Jonas implied Louis-Dreyfus was old after Girls actress and comedian Aidy Bryant warned her to keep her hands off of the hot singer.
The trio joined forces for the promo, in which Jonas serves as resident beefcake. “Julia, don’t even try and talk to Nick because he already says he loves me and I’m his wife,” Bryant joked. After Jonas rejects her advances and she storms off the stage, Louis-Dreyfus attempts to impress him by boasting about her veteran status on the show. Jonas interrupts her, saying, “So you’re old enough to be my —” before the actress cuts in with, “Biggest fan!”
This is the first time since 2007 that Louis-Dreyfus will host SNL after getting her acting start on the show back in the early ’80s. In those days, the actress admitted, things were very different. She recently told The New York Times that it didn’t serve as quite the launchpad for her career as she had hoped: “I did not come out of SNL as any kind of name,” Louis-Dreyfus said. “I didn’t do anything particularly great when I was there. I didn’t. It’s fine. But I learned a tremendous amount. It was a very sexist environment.”
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She also revealed that times have changed for the better. “Since I’ve gone back, I can tell you that it’s much more of an equal-opportunity environment,” she said. When you can count superstars like Amy Poehler, Tina Fey and Kristen Wiig as former cast members who went on to do great things, you can understand why Louis-Dreyfus can appreciate the change.
Even if SNL didn’t inspired casting agents everywhere to knock down her door, everything changed for Louis-Dreyfus after appearing on Seinfeld, and she is now one of the most respected comedic actresses in the biz. But that doesn’t mean she is protected from the same boring age jokes that we’ve been hearing about women since they began refusing to lie down and die after turning 45.
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The promo is funny. Louis-Dreyfus is completely in control of the joke being made about her age and implied cougar status, and there’s no need to get so heavy about it all. But I hope quips about her age are kept to a minimum on the show, because she has so much more to offer us than that cliché. Also, as hot as Jonas is (and that’s pretty freaking hot), an Emmy-award winning actress with a badass sense of humor and the confidence to pose topless on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine at age 53 — totally hot.
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