Julia Louis-Dreyfus reveals there was 'tons' of tension on Seinfeld set: 'You're going to butt heads'

Julia Louis-Dreyfus has pulled back the curtain on the massive amount of tension she experienced on the set of her star-making show Seinfeld.

The 65-year-old was part of the core cast of the series, completing the central quartet with Jerry Seinfeld, Jason Alexander and Michael Richards.

Now she has confessed she and her colleagues occasionally found themselves at loggerheads, on Benny Blanco's podcast Friends Keep Secrets.

When Blanco's co-host Kristin Batalucco asked if there had been 'friction' while making the sitcom, Louis-Dreyfus said: 'Of course, yes, tons.'

The 11-time Emmy winner explained that 'it's hard to do anything really well and it takes a lot of work and you're going to butt heads.'

She clarified that Seinfeld himself and showrunner Larry David were 'collaborative' when she suggested ideas, but 'sometimes there was an argument.' 

The Daily Mail has contacted representatives for Seinfeld, David, Alexander and Richards for comment.

In spite of the conflicts that broke out at times, Louis-Dreyfus described a feeling of creative energy and liberty that reigned on the set of the series.

'It was just like being friends together and just hanging out and - and I mean, that sounds as if it was just hanging out. It was a lot of work to make the show, of course,' clarified the The New Adventures of Old Christine star.

'But what I mean was, there wasn't like - we were kids and we had our own idea, and they had their own idea of exactly what they wanted to do, which was not the norm at the time in terms of structured television,' she said.

'And so I think there was an air of freedom because of that, you know?' she said, adding that she and her co-stars 'had a lot of fun making it.'

Louis-Dreyfus, who won the hearts of fans on Seinfeld as the leading man's ex-turned-friend Elaine Benes, recalled the bumpy road the show navigated in order to get off the ground after it started life in 1989.

The pilot - which did not contain Elaine and instead featured a waitress called Claire played by Lee Garlington as the female principal - flopped with test audiences.

Although the project was initially dropped, NBC executive Rick Ludwin nurtured enough faith in the program to pick it up the following year.

However the fact that the pilot had tested so poorly meant Seinfeld's first season only managed to wrangle an order for four new episodes, a tiny number for that era. 

In her new interview, Louis-Dreyfus remembered: 'I thought it was really good, though those first four, I thought: "Wow, this is so unusual," and then I thought: "The network is too stupid. They'll never pick it up."'

She contrasted Seinfeld to other sitcoms of the period like The Cosby Show that were written with the genre's standard 'setup-setup-joke' dialogue structure.

'And this was just sort of odd,' Louis-Dreyfus told Blanco, Batalucco cand their co-host Lil Dicky. 'I mean, it's not so odd now, maybe, in retrospect.' 

The barbed humor, which was then atypical for an American sitcom and was captured by David's on-set adage 'no hugging, no learning,' ultimately grew on audiences to the point the show enjoyed a roaringly successful nine-season run.

Louis-Dreyfus became a globally recognized figure and was 'so surprised at all that attention,' she insisted to Blanco and his co-hosts.