Julia Louis-Dreyfus Knew ‘Almost Immediately' Brad Hall Was the One When She Met Him in College

Elle

29-05-2025

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Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Brad Hall may have the perfect love story. The pair met when they were both college students pursuing comedy, going on to work on Saturday Night Live together. The Seinfeld star has admitted she knew 'almost immediately' that Hall was the one, and she seems to appreciate him more every year, if her Instagrams are any indication. They've been married now for almost four decades and share two children.
Here is Louis-Dreyfus and Brad Hall's complete relationship timeline so far.
In 2013, Louis-Dreyfus told Craig Ferguson that she first met Hall when they were both students at Northwestern University in the early 1980s. Hall was producing a show with the Practical Theatre Company, and she auditioned. She joined PTC, and the group had a run at their campus in Evanston, Illinois, and in Chicago.
'There were a couple of moments, some of which I will not share,' she said of connecting with Hall. 'But I would say that I knew almost immediately [he was the one]. It's really the truth.'
The couple did an interview with Grist in 2003 and talked more about the early days of their relationship.
'In our skits, we parodied the problems of the day—oil dependency, environmental negligence, a lot of the issues we're now seeing reemerge on the public radar,' Hall said of that time.
Louis-Dreyfus laughed and replied, 'I don't even remember those skits. I was about 19 at the time and had fallen head over heels in love with Brad. He was a senior with a big old beard and Jesus hair. I may have been just taking his word for it at that point.'
All four members of the Practical Theatre Company found success at Saturday Night Live after being hired for the sketch show by producers Dick Ebersol and Bob Tischler. Louis-Dreyfus was only 21 years old at the time, making her the youngest female cast member.
June 1987
On June 25, 1987, the couple married in Santa Barbara, California, close to where Hall grew up. They were married by Hall's father, an actual minister, per The New Yorker.
June 1992
The couple welcomed a son in 1992, Henry Hall. During her pregnancy, Louis-Dreyfus was starring in Seinfeld. She told Vogue in 2019, 'This [oversize] clothing was very helpful to me as a pregnant person. Both getting more and more pregnant and then becoming less and less pregnant after giving birth.'
May 1997
Their second son, Charles Hall, arrived in 1997. In a 2008 interview with Harper's Bazaar, the actress had a different perspective on hiding pregnancy while on TV, saying it was challenging.
'I went through two pregnancies over a nine-year period on Seinfeld, and I gained 45 pounds both times. Maybe it was 40 pounds, but not less than that, and I'm 5'3',' she said. 'I really tried not to put those 40 pounds on, but I was hungry, man. I craved red meat and lemonade, and I cannot believe the amount of food I could take in. And it's really documented on TV. I was trying to hide the weight.'
April 2013
Hall accompanied Louis-Dreyfus to the season 2 premiere of Veep.
They attended the premiere of season 4 of Veep together.
They went with their son Charlie to a basketball game that same month.
Louis-Dreyfus won an Emmy Award her role as Selina Meyer on Veep. She and Hall celebrated her win with a sweet kiss.
Louis-Dreyfus is fairly consistent about celebrating their wedding anniversary every year on Instagram, often showing throwback photos from their wedding. In 2016, she wrote in the caption, '29 years ago today. A good choice.'
March 2017
The couple's son, Charlie, became a basketball player at Northwestern. In 2019, the pair watched him play for the Northwestern Wildcats against Rutgers's Scarlet Knights.
In September 2017, Louis-Dreyfus made Emmys history by winning Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series six years in a row for Veep.
That same month, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She shared the news on Twitter at the time, writing, '1 in 8 women get breast cancer. Today, I'm the one. The good news is that I have the most glorious group of supportive and caring friends, and fantastic insurance through my union. The bad news is that not all women are so lucky, so let's fight all cancers and make universal health care a reality.'
Sharing another throwback pic for their 31st wedding anniversary, Louis-Dreyfus wrote, '31,000 years ago today, I married my current boyfriend.'
The couple created a PSA for the 2018 midterm elections to spur voting, with Hall directing.
'A corrupt, self-obsessed, inept moron who somehow becomes president of the United States? That's the character that I play on HBO's Veep,' Louis-Dreyfus said in the production. 'But when I'm off of TV, I'm not a politician, I'm not an expert, I'm a citizen. And I know that the midterm election on November 6 is beyond important. It is vital.'
The couple attended the 2019 InStyle Awards with their two sons, Henry and Charlie.
In April 2020, Louis-Dreyfus shared more about her cancer battle with People, explaining how important her friends and family were during treatment.
'You hear it all the time, but the people that I relied on the most, besides the very capable doctors and nurses who took care of me, were my family and my close friends,' she said. 'I was surrounded by people who were supporting me. That was hugely meaningful, and I needed it. It helped me to believe I was going to get through. It was like they had their hands underneath me holding me up.'
She continued, 'I think whenever a family goes through a crisis and comes out the other end, you're bound to have an intimacy that, perhaps, wasn't quite there like it was before. I mean, we were very close before, but I know how precious life is.'
The star shared some more recent pics for their 34th anniversary, writing, '34 years in, keeping our head above water. Love and love to the love of my life.'
In the photos, they're in the ocean, and she kisses his cheek.
On the red carpet at NRDC's Night of Comedy event, she revealed the secret to a long marriage: 'You gotta marry Brad Hall, that's what you gotta do,' she told Extra.
That same month, for their 35th wedding anniversary, Louis-Dreyfus shared another pic from their ceremony, writing, 'What in the living hell? How did that happen so quick?'
During an appearance on Live with Kelly and Mark, Louis-Dreyfus discussed her wedding dress, noting it looked very similar to Princess Diana's.
'Look at that wedding dress,' the Veep star said of a photo of the event. 'You'll see I fashioned my dress after Princess Diana.'
She also shared a bit about working with Hall on comedy, saying, 'We are honest with one another so that if he doesn't think it quite works or something, he'll tell me why. And I'll do the same with his work.'
She said more about the dress during an episode of her podcast, Wiser Than Me. Though Louis-Dreyfus joked about the look, the actress said she still thought that the late royal's 'wedding dress kicked ass.'
'Lady Di's dress had these poofy sleeves with two layers of lace that came off the cuff,' she explained. 'And I totally stole that from my dress, which was a sort of study of everything awful in the '80s. Well, I mean, that's not fair. It was fine, but it was so '80s.'
She added that 'one of the great things about clothes' is that they 'identify with an era,' and that she felt like 'Cinderella at the ball' in her wedding dress.
'Maybe I'm a tiny bit embarrassed when I look at that dress now, but it was a statement of a particular moment,' she continued. 'The huge sleeves, the sweetheart neckline, the fabric flowered wreath in my hair. I'm pretty sure Brad wore a suit. Anyways, man, it was romantic, and I was getting married. And for that, okay, I admit it. It was perfect.'
There were more special details as well.
'I had this tiny little dolphin that was hand carved out of stone, sort of a charm, like a little talisman,' Louis-Dreyfus shared. 'And I had them sew it into my dress because I thought it was a good symbol of joy. You know, dolphins are so joyful.'
She continued, 'And I still don't know where it is in the dress, which I think is kind of fabulous. It's in there somewhere. Fortunes whisper sewn in with lucky threads of grace.'
They walked the red carpet together at the Fourth Annual Academy Museum Gala in Los Angeles on October 19.
The couple attended SNL50, a celebration of Saturday Night Live's 50th season.