Julia Louis-Dreyfus was the first person Michaela Watkins told she booked Saturday Night Live
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Michaela Watkins and Julia Louis-Dreyfus aren't merely two funny Saturday Night Live alums who strongly resemble each other — they're also part of each other's journeys on the legendary late night sketch show.
When Watkins was filming a recurring guest star role on The New Old Adventures of Old Christine, she received a call telling her that she'd booked a job as a featured cast member on the 2008-2009 season. Louis-Dreyfus, the star of the sitcom, had of course done her own stint on SNL in the 1980s.
"We have talked about Saturday Night Live actually, because I was with Michaela when she got hired to do Saturday Night Live," Louis-Dreyfus tells EW while discussing her and Watkins' new film You Hurt My Feelings.
"That's right," adds Watkins. "She was the first person I told. It was very exciting."
Both Watkins and Louis-Dreyfus had relatively short runs on the long-running comedy show. Louis-Dreyfus was a cast member from 1982-1985, and Watkins only stayed with the show for the one season. Though brief tenure or not, they've both gone on to stellar careers in film and television — do they think staying any longer on SNL would've changed anything?
"I certainly don't have any desire to have extended my stay there," says Louis-Dreyfus. "That was plenty for me. It was really learning by the seat of your pants. I was pretty young when I went; I was only 21. So, I had no idea what I was doing."
Bryan Bedder/Getty Michaela Watkins and Julia Louis-Dreyfus
Watkins, however, wishes her exit could have been on her own terms. "I was there a much shorter time than you were," she tells Louis-Dreyfus. "That felt like a very public rejection, you know? I would've liked two more years to have had the chance to not be a new person. That's the 12-year-old me needing to scratch that itch — and my ego. But in retrospect, I like that my career is not defined by that."
Though Watkins only did one season of the show, she did find time to do an impression of Louis-Dreyfus — and she made sure to give her former costar a heads-up. "Things happened very fast on the show," Watkins remembers. "It was very quick, and I got thrown into a sketch. And I remember telling you because I wanted you to know that I wasn't making fun of you, that they were just having me do an impression of you."
"I'm just glad you didn't have a Elaine [from Seinfeld] hair," replies Louis-Dreyfus, with a laugh. "You had Old Christine hair, not Elaine hair."
Adds Watkins: "I didn't know I could do an impression of Julia until that moment, but I don't even know if it was any good to honest with you. I don't even remember it."
Louis-Dreyfus insists it was a good impression, prompting Watkins to do it again on the spot. Watkins does, but then she turns the tables, asking Louis-Dreyfus to do an impression of her. "She's a mumbler," Louis-Dreyfus remarks, before launching into a spot-on imitation of Watkins.
"That's pretty good," says Watkins, pledging that they have to show You Hurt My Feelings writer-director Nicole Holofcener.
With their uncanny ability to imitate each other, it's fitting then the two are now playing sisters, though Watkins admits it's something she's long imagined. "I thought about us being siblings," she says. "Not playing her, but I thought about us being siblings forever."
You Hurt My Feelings is now in theaters.
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