Elaine's Seinfeld Dance Humiliated Julia Louis-Dreyfus In A Very Real Way
Julia Louis-Dreyfus did a lot of embarrassing things as Elaine over the many seasons of "Seinfeld," from a pilled-out Marlon Brando impression to the sultry voice of a sex phone operator, but none were quite as humiliating for the actor as that jerky little number in the final season. The legendary comedy series was filled with unforgettable moments up til the very end, and one of the most memorable things from the entire show — Elaine's iconic dance — doesn't occur until the season 8 episode "The Little Kicks," named after her ungainly movement. So why did a seasoned comedian like Louis-Dreyfus get so bashful, and where exactly did that dance come from anyway?
"She was very nervous about this because, as much of a trooper as she is to look foolish and being funny, she was a little worried about it being foolish and not being funny," explained "The Little Kicks" director Andy Ackerman in an Inside Look at the episode.
The dance definitely didn't come naturally to Louis-Dreyfus, who is more of a sharp-shooting wit than a slapstick comic. Most of her most memorable moments in the show are zingers like "I don't have a square to spare." The physical comedy tends to fall to her controversial co-star Michael Richards, who plays the eccentric neighbor Kramer known for his zany entrances and over-the-top reactions. But it wasn't just this uncharted area of comedy that stumped the actor, it was the nature of the joke.
Louis-Dreyfus wasn't used to being laughed at — no, really
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!"
The unexpected inspiration behind the little kicks
The real inspiration for the dance came from an unexpected source — and a famous one at that. One of the writers behind "The Little Kicks," Spike Feresten, drew from his experience working at "Saturday Night Live" as a receptionist. While working there, he saw his own boss — the incomparable Lorne Michaels — embarrass himself in the very same fashion that Elaine does in front of her own subordinates.
At one of the fabled "SNL" afterparties, Feresten saw his former employer and legendary showrunner "dancing as if he'd never seen another human being dance before," as he described it to author Jennifer Keishin Armstrong in her book "Seinfeldia: How a Show About Nothing Changed Everything," per the New York Post. "The man heaved and gyrated to a rhythm only he could feel," he went on. This recollection closely mirrors George's description of Elaine's dancing as "a full-body dry heave set to music."
The writer "even got to give Louis-Dreyfus a little dance lesson during production, schooling her in the singular Michaels method." However, the actor did a bit of her own experimentation behind the scenes to find the perfect recipe for her dance floor disaster.
"It was just written that Elaine danced really badly," she recalled in an interview with Vanity Fair. "And so the night before the table read I had the script and frankly I just stood in front of a mirror and tried to do movements that looked incredibly bad and I had a few of them and I remember my mom was staying with us at the time and I came downstairs and I sort of auditioned these different movements for my mom and my husband and they all voted on the one that I did. So there you go."
Was the humiliation worth it? Fans definitely think so
The dance might have been a scary hurdle for Louis-Dreyfus to overcome as an actor, but the shockwaves of that singular moment in "Seinfeld" history are still being felt today. Recently, "The Little Kicks" inspired a competition of Elaine impersonators who gathered on a baseball field home to the Brooklyn Cyclones to show off their best (worst) moves.
The winner of the competition, Mary Notari, approached it like a professional, even dressing herself in an outfit exactly like the one Elaine wears to her office party. However, she took a slightly different approach to the dance than Louis-Dreyfus. Rather than ignoring the music or trying to dance in silence, Notari argues that a good ear for music is crucial to executing the dance correctly.
"It takes a lot of rhythm to have no rhythm," she said on the TODAY show. "You have to be able to hear the beat in order to miss it. So falling directly in between those beats is really the key."
Even though Louis-Dreyfus might disagree with her technique, the impression is an undeniable dead-ringer for the original dance. It might have been a difficult day on set for the "Seinfeld" star, but the cultural impact of this dance is completely unmatched and still growing. Long live the little kicks!