Julia Louis-Dreyfus

The actress on smoking weed, staying married, and bitching with Larry David

- MARLOW STERN

Your new movie, You Hurt My Feelings, centers on a novelist having a crisis of confidence after she overhears a scathing critique by her husband. Is there a piece of negative criticism that’s stuck with you?

I got a bad review very, very early on in my career from [TV critic] Tom Shales in The Washington Post, and it was particularly stinging to me because my family lived in Washington, D.C., and I spent half of my childhood in D.C. It was for Saturday Night Live. And you know what? He wasn’t wrong.

Despite their big argument in the film, your character, Beth, and her husband seem to have a healthy relationship. You’ve been married for 36 years. What’s the secret to a lasting union?

I think there’s an element of luck involved. You have to, in my case, marry the right guy. People ask me this and I don’t really know what to say! I just really enjoy his company. I like to have life adventures with him, and I don’t know what I’d do without him. I have no advice there, just: Good luck! That’s my advice.

Beth’s son works in a weed shop, which made me curious: Do you smoke weed?

I wish I could. I did when I was in college,