Listen Again: Julia Gets Wise with Catherine O'Hara

Wiser Than Me with Julia Louis-Dreyfus

Lemonada Media

Comedy

4.7 • 10.4K Ratings

🗓️ 10 September 2025

⏱️ 73 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Catherine O’Hara is nominated for two Emmy Awards this year – and ahead of Sunday’s awards ceremony, we wanted to listen back to the hilarious and heartwarming conversation Julia had with her last fall. On this episode of Wiser Than Me, Julia sits down with 71-year-old comedy icon – and star of Beetlejuice and Schitt’s Creek – Catherine O’Hara. Catherine and Julia share their improv origin stories and reminisce about the freedom and experimentation of their early comedy careers. They also swap stories about visiting the Vatican, over-apologizing, and how they both find laughter incredibly sexy. Plus, Julia’s mom Judith tries very hard to tell a joke. Follow Wiser Than Me on Instagram and TikTok @wiserthanme and on Facebook at facebook.com/wiserthanmepodcast. Find out more about other shows on our network at @lemonadamedia on all social platforms. Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our show and get bonus content. Subscribe today at bit.ly/lemonadapremium. For exclusive discount codes and more information about our sponsors, visit https://lemonadamedia.com/sponsors/. For additional resources, information, and a transcript of the episode, visit lemonadamedia.com. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Well, hi there. It's me, Julia Louis Dreyfus. We're back for season three of Wiser Than Me. We've got so much more wisdom to share from the magnificent old ladies featured this season. To celebrate the start of season three, we've added some groovy new items to our Wiser than Me merchandise collection. Head over to our merch shop to check out all of our great stuff, like a classic
0:21.9	Wiser Than Me Bagu tote bag, a kitchen tea towel with my Grandma Deity's delicious peanut butter cookie
0:28.8	recipe featured on it. And a brand new, gorgeous, hardcover Wiser Than Me notebook to capture
0:35.5	all of this season's bits of wisdom. Start shopping today by visiting Wiser Than Me Notebook to capture all of this season's bits of wisdom.
0:38.2	Start shopping today by visiting wiser than me shop.com.
0:45.5	Lemonada.
0:49.9	So in my career, I've done mostly comedy, and my fondest memories are working with other actors to perfect a bit, to like mine a moment for the most comedy possible.
1:04.5	Honestly, I don't think about kudos or awards or reviews or paychecks or anything like that.
1:09.1	And it's actually, it's not even the laughs.
1:11.2	It's rehearsing to get the laughs. There's a scene in a VEP episode, for example, when I'm telling
1:19.4	Tony Hale, who plays Gary, that the president is resigning. So my character, Selena Meyer,
1:26.8	the VEep, is going to become president. And we're in a
1:31.2	bathroom, a dingy bathroom, and in the scene we're kind of laughing and crying, and then he gets a
1:38.7	bloody nose. And oh my God, we worked on that scene forever. It was exhausting, but over and over and over
1:47.6	looking for like little things we could bring to the scene, you know, like things that sort of,
1:54.1	in fact, pull out of a bag. Within the scene, I'm pulling stuff out of a bag. And when I
2:00.0	watch it now, that's what I remember, the work,
2:04.3	the joyful teamwork that Tony and I did in rehearsal and while shooting, you know, not the laughs
2:10.6	per se. But when you don't get the laughs, oh my goodness, you certainly do remember that.
2:18.9	When I was just getting started, I was part of the Practical Theater Company in Chicago.
2:24.8	And our show, which was called the Practical Theater Company's Golden 50th Anniversary Jubilee,
2:31.4	which was a joke, of course, because the company was new, hadn't been around very
	...

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