When, late last year, Annie Leibovitz appeared as a guest on Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s podcast, Wiser Than Me, the longtime Vogue photographer remarked on how “strange” it was that she’d never shot Louis-Dreyfus before.
A little less than a year later, Leibovitz’s images of Louis-Dreyfus graced the pages of Chloe’s first September issue. “That was a life dream, for me to work with her,” Louis-Dreyfus tells Chloe on today’s episode of The Run-Through. “It’s scary to have your picture taken, but I didn’t have that anxiety. I felt confident in her.”
Something else Louis-Dreyfus will soon do for the first time? Perform on Broadway, in a revival of Jon Robin Baitz’s 2011 play Other Desert Cities. Louis-Dreyfus will play Polly, the matriarch in a conservative family gathering in Palm Springs for Christmas Eve. As she uses the many Polly types that she grew up around to develop the character, Louis-Dreyfus is also plotting out her wellness routine, which will include a combination of interval training, walking and running, Pilates, and drinking electrolytes.
In addition to her upcoming Broadway debut, she and Chloe speak about the loss of Louis-Dreyfus’s home of 32 years in the Palisades Fire. “That is definitely, short of losing people that I love in my life, the great loss,” Louis-Dreyfus remarks. “That was a shocking experience. I still can’t believe it happened.” Yet both she and Chloe agree that the “little things that remain are so much more treasurable now”—for instance, the rosebushes that survived when Chloe’s mother’s house burned down in the same fire.
When Chloe asks if she, like Louis-Dreyfus, should try attending therapy with her mom, the answer is a big yes. “I’m all for it,” Louis-Dreyfus says. “I would advise you to do it while you have the chance.”
