Julia Louis-Dreyfus has proven it’s never too late to strengthen family bonds.
Louis-Dreyfus, 63, has gone into detail about her decision to attend therapy with her mom, Judith Bowles, when the Veep actress was age 60 and her mother was age 87.
“I went to therapy with my mother because she said something to me,” Louis-Dreyfus told The New York Times in an interview published on Saturday, June 8. “It might have been my dad’s birthday — my dad who had passed, and she was remembering that it was his birthday — and she said, ‘I’m sure you’re thinking about your dad. And I know there was stuff there that I wish we’d been able to deal with or talk about when you were younger.’ Because my parents were divorced. ‘I wish we’d had a chance to do that.’ And I said: ‘Oh, well, mom, what’s keeping us? Why don’t we do it?’”
During the April 13 episode of “We Can Do Hard Things”, a podcast hosted by Glennon Doyle, her wife Abby Wambach, and her sister Amanda Doyle, Louis-Dreyfus had briefly touched on her family’s decision.
Expanding on the experience via her New York Times interview, Louis-Dreyfus added that “it was very, very helpful” and paved a new line of communication between the pair.
“It’s not like everything becomes perfect, but that’s not possible under any circumstances,” she told the outlet. “But it was an opportunity to communicate in maybe a more honest way, and in a safe way that was helpful to both of us. And I have no regrets about it. So if you’re thinking about it with your mom, and if you think your mother would be into it, I encourage you to do it, because you might not have the opportunity in 10 years, and you might think, Oh, if only.”
The Seinfeld star also revealed that she sees her mother differently in light of their shared experience.
The candid details comes as Louis-Dreyfus returns for season 2 of her award-winning podcast “Wiser Than Me”, which sees the actress interview iconic older women — including her now 90-year-old mother.
Other guests on the podcast have included Julie Andrews, Patti Smith, Vera Wang, Carol Burnett, Billie Jean King and Jane Fonda.
Louis-Dreyfus told The New York Times that creating “Wiser Than Me” has encouraged her to share more of her personal life with the public.
“I’ve never done anything like this. It sort of surprises me a little bit. I’m incredibly private — I really am. So it is sort of a strange thing,” she said. “But I also don’t have any regrets about what I’ve shared on the podcast. It is new territory for me, but it’s also good. I think it engenders a way of thinking about communication that might be good.”
Louis-Dreyfus has just finished production on Marvel’s Thunderbolts, set for a 2025 release, in which she will continue her role as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, a super spy, alongside Florence Pugh, David Harbor and Sebastian Stan.
