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Louis-Dreyfus says Harris too smart to take call from fictional VP

(NewsNation) — Long before Kamala Harris became vice president, and even before she was elected to the U.S. Senate, Selena Meyer was attracting major attention in her job as vice president of the United States.

Selena Meyer was the fictional vice president played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus in the HBO series Veep, which first aired in 2012 when Harris was still the Attorney General of California.


But the comparisons between Harris and Meyer have been frequent since Harris became vice president, and even more so since she became the apparent Democratic party presidential nominee.

In a marriage of fiction and reality, Louis-Dreyfus said she “will be extra-involved” in the Harris campaign and hinted that she will attend the Democratic National Convention.

So, what advice would Selena Meyer give Kamala Harris?

“If Selina had any advice for Kamala, she had best not take it,” Louis-Dreyfus told The Times of London. “I think Kamala is so intelligent she wouldn’t take the call.”

Harris and Louis-Dreyfus are not strangers, evidenced by the shot of the two taking a selfie at a White House state dinner for the president of France in 2022. Harris posted the photo later, with the caption, “Great to see you, Madam Vice-President.”

Actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus and her son Charlie Hall arrive for the White House state dinner for French President Emmanuel Macron at the White House on December 1, 2022 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Nathan Howard/Getty Images)

Louis-Dreyfus also told the Times her conversation with Harris that night centered on the authentic feel of Veep.

“We talked about … how much Veep got right in terms of the culture of Washington, both behind the curtain and in front of the curtain. She was a big fan of the show.”

Louis-Dreyfus won six of the show’s 17 Emmy Awards during its run that ended in 2019. She said one reason the show ended was that “we couldn’t satirize anything anymore. The Trump presidency was doing a better job.”

“When we started, we were pushing against reality, but now less so, certainly in terms of the nastiness of the communication,” she said.