Julia Louis-Dreyfus Recounts “Cringey” First ‘SNL’ Rehearsal: “It Was Excruciating”

As Saturday Night Live celebrates its landmark 50th season, Julia Louis-Dreyfus is reflecting on her early years on the show.

The Golden Globe winner recently opened up about the “excruciating” first rehearsal with her SNL co-stars after joining the cast with Season 8 in 1982, becoming the show’s youngest female cast member ever at the time at age 21.

“When I was just getting started, I was part of the Practical Theatre Company in Chicago,” she told People. “The producers of SNL came to see the show and they loved it, and they hired all of us to come to New York and be a part of SNL.”

During her first rehearsal, she recalled having to perform the first act with three “complete and total unknowns” in the SNL office “under fluorescent lights in the middle of the day in front of 20 very cynical, unfriendly SNL cast members and writers.”

Louis-Dreyfus claimed the rest of the cast “already hated us because a bunch of their best friends had just been fired to make room for us.”

“We never had a chance. Sketches that had killed in Chicago died a terrible, terrible death that day. It was excruciating. I think that humiliation influenced our whole SNL experience for the next couple of years, to tell you the truth,” she added. “I’ve learned a lot since that cringey day in a carpeted office on the 17th floor of 30 Rock.”

During her run on SNL, Louis-Dreyfus was known for such characters as televangelist April May June, ‘Let’s Watch TV’ co-host Consuela and ‘Weekend Update’ teen correspondent Patti Lynn Hunnsucker.

Appearing alongside Billy Crystal, Eddie Murphy, Martin Short, Christopher Guest and now husband Brad Hall, Louis-Dreyfus left the NBC sketch comedy show in 1985.