Elaine is normally inside the jokes that she delivers — she knows what she’s saying is funny, even if she isn’t laughing — but this time, Elaine was the butt of the joke, like George so often is. This was a bit of an adjustment for Louis-Dreyfus.
“It was actually sort of hard to do it because I knew it was an instance in which I had to kind of give in to making a fool of myself in order to get the joke,” she explained in the behind-the-scenes featurette. “In other words, make myself [look] so bad that I was being laughed at. So, it was sort of humiliating in a real kind of a way.”
As if the dance itself wasn’t difficult enough, the “Veep” star had to tackle it more than once. The first time it was shot, the show’s creatives attempted to set the dance to music, but they quickly learned that it defied all laws of rhythm. “We had to cut the music out and then put it in post because I couldn’t do that jerky movement with music playing because you want to sort of go with the beat of the music,” Louis-Dreyfus added. “So that got in the way of it.”
The actor was able to overcome her fear of looking ridiculous but, unfortunately, the dance followed her into her own life. Fans and even friends misinterpreted the scene, assuming that the inspiration for the dance was drawn from Louis-Dreyfus herself.
“In my own life, people will come up to me and they’ll say, ‘Oh, are you gonna dance?'” she went on. “Like if we’re at a party, ‘Tell me if you’re gonna dance, I gotta see it.’ And I’m not that bad a dancer! I’m not. I’m not!”
