Glenn Whipp: Julia Louis-Dreyfus would like to talk about death
LOS ANGELES — How old do you feel?
It's one of the first questions Julia Louis-Dreyfus asks her guests — all women of a certain age, more often than not older than 70 — on her podcast "Wiser Than Me." The answers come in all over the place, often a decade or three younger than what's on their birth certificates. (Or 5. Debbie Allen feels 25.) Sometimes the answer is conditional. In her head, Patti Smith believes she's somewhere between 9 and 11; practically, she feels every one of her 77 years. And occasionally, the guest offers a blunter reply. "Eighty-two," Fran Lebowitz answers. "Some days, maybe 92." (She was 72 at the time.)
How old do feel, Julia? We're sitting on the patio of a Pacific Palisades restaurant, not far from her home, sharing a bottle of mineral water, throwing caution to the wind and adding a wedge of lime for fun. The restaurant is part of one of Rick Caruso's manicured outdoor malls — the website calls it the kind of
