Hollywood's Emmy Icons

THE COMEDY QUEEN
Julia Louis-Dreyfus

What those stats really say is that I'm more of an Emmy loser than an Emmy winner," jokes Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Hardly, as she finds herself in rather elite company: With legend Betty White, Louis-Dreyfus is Emmy's most-nominated comedy series actress, having scored a dozen mentions for her supporting turn as Elaine Benes on NBC's Seinfeld and as the bumbling titular divorced mother on CBS' The New Adventures of Old Christine, which earned her a supporting and lead comedy actress Emmy, respectively. Juggling work and family is familiar territory for the mother of two (her husband of 24 years is comedy writer Brad Hall, with whom she worked on Saturday Night Live in the early 1980s). "It's an easier lifestyle for me to keep one foot in my family life and the other in my job," says Louis-Dreyfus, 50, who can be seen next playing U.S. Vice President Selina Meyer in the HBO single-camera comedy Veep. "I like the pace of it. Getting an episode done in five days feels bouncy and works well with my comedic sensibilities." Ever modest about her Emmy track record, Louis-Dreyfus credits the "unsung heroes" of her comedies' casts and crews and admits to being amazed by her staying power, wondering aloud, "Who would have thunk it?"

Photographed by Mary Rozzi on Sept. 10 at Smashbox Studios in Culver City.