Julia Louis-Dreyfus is ‘delighted’ by Veep resurgence and knows Kamala Harris is too: ‘Big time’

Julia Louis-Dreyfus portrayed to perfection Vice-President-turned-President Selina Meyer for seven seasons of Veep, which ended its lauded run in 2019. But thanks to the campaign of current, IRL Veep Kamala Harris, the HBO series has found new legs.

In an exclusive Entertainment Weekly interview with the cast of Marvel’s Thunderbolts at San Diego Comic-Con, the 11-time Emmy winner shared her reaction to Veep‘s comeback — as well as how VP Harris is taking it.

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“It’s been a wild thing to witness. Viewership went up something insane like 350 percent,” Louis-Dreyfus said of the Veep resurgence. “I’m delighted. I’m happy people are getting a kick out of it. And I know that Kamala Harris is — big time.”

The first season of HBO’s vice presidential comedy, which is streaming on Max, saw a 353% increase in viewership on Monday, July 22, following President Biden’s announcements that he is stepping out of the presidential race and endorsing Vice President Harris for the Democratic nomination. The show’s first season logged 2.2 million minutes viewed on Monday, which marks a massive increase from 486,000 minutes of viewership on Sunday, July 21, according to Luminate.

Fans online were quick to observe the obvious parallels between Veep and Harris’ political career: like our real-life vice president, Louis-Dreyfus’ fictional Selina Meyer served as a senator from a blue state before an unsuccessful presidential run that ended with her becoming the running mate of the man who defeated her in the Democratic primary. 

And when President Joe Biden announced he would not seek reelection and endorsed Harris, that obviously brought to mind the season 2 finale of Veep in which Meyer informs her staff that POTUS won’t be running for reelection and that she intends to run for the highest office in the land.

Veep showrunner David Mandel also weighed in on the love the show’s been getting as of late, saying that he thinks it’s “great,” but he gets “driven crazy” when people try to use Veep and Selina Meyer to “diminish” Harris.

“But there are two types of people doing Veep memes right now: There are people really enjoying Selina’s moment of telling her staff that she’s running for president; there’s a joy there that’s fun and nice and celebratory,” Mandel told The Hollywood Reporter. “And then there are assholes who are using it differently. Surprise surprise, Kamala is a woman of color, and it seems like those people are using it as a simple way of insulting her. So I don’t like that part.”

As for Louis-Dreyfus, she reprises her role as Valentina Allegra de Fontaine in the upcoming Thunderbolts, featuring a group of antiheroes going on a mission for the U.S. government. The 36th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe also stars Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova, Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes, Wyatt Russell as U.S. Agent, and David Harbour as Red Guardian, with Rachel Weisz as Melina Vostokoff.

Watch the full interview above.

With reporting by Gerrad Hall.