Julia Louis-Dreyfus reveals secrecy involved in her Marvel role and why she wore a black cloak to set

Although primarily known for her comedic roles on Saturday Night Live, Seinfeld, 30 Rock and Veep, the wonderful Julia Louis-Dreyfus has relatively recently entered the Marvel Cinematic Universe, taking on the part of Contessa Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, to the delight of a lot of her fans. 

In a new interview with Variety, the 62-year-old actress went into detail about the superhero world, specifically dissecting the extent of the secrecy involved in her casting. When watching the Marvel movies in order, you’ll notice Julia’s first cameo on Black Widow, followed by her appearance on 2022's Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and the upcoming Thunderbolts, which she'll start shooting in June. The star also very briefly showed up on Falcon and the Winter Soldier on Disney+.

"There’s so much secrecy around it," Julia said to the outlet about her participation in the various films. "When I first started shooting, I had to go to set wearing a black cloak with a hood and keep my head down so nobody could see it was me walking onto the soundstage."

As noted in the interview, Julia’s involvement with the character runs deep - an unsurprising fact given the importance of the out-of-the-ordinary role she’s decided to take on at this point in her already established career. 

Among the ideas she's had for the Contessa: change her iconic streak of white hair to purple.

"I thought purple would make it a little more of this world today," she explained. "And I didn't want her to look too much like Cruella. I haven't seen the script yet - we'll see if that happens. I guess I'd better get in shape."

Julia isn't the only celebrity who was asked to maintain an aura of secrecy around her involvement with the superhero world. Last year, Willem Dafoe revealed that he also had to wear a cloak and ride in nondescript cars to keep his role in Spider-Man: No Way Home a secret.

"When I'd go to set, they'd put me in a black cloak and always have me in a car with dark windows and they didn't want me hanging out any place because they didn't want anyone to know I was in town making a movie," Willem revealed during a virtual appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon on NBC. "And I didn't think it would work, but actually, it did. And only just before the movie was released, they started kind of hinting [at] things in the trailers so it was cool."

In addition to her Marvel project, Julia is gearing up for the January 27 release of You People on Netflix, in which she stars alongside Eddie Murphy, Jonah Hill (who co-wrote the comedy), David Duchovny and more. 

The film chronicles the relationship between Jonah's Ezra Cohen and Amira Mohammed, played by Lauren London, amid "culture clashes, societal expectations and generational differences." Julia plays Ezra's mother Shelley.