Why Julia Louis-Dreyfus nearly turned down 'The Sheep Detectives'

NEW YORK – Just call her Baaaa-gatha Christie.

In “The Sheep Detectives” (in theaters May 8), Julia Louis-Dreyfus voices a shrewd ewe named Lily, whose favorite pastime is listening to her beloved shepherd, George (Hugh Jackman), read mystery novels. But when George turns up dead one day on his rural English farm, Lily rounds up her flock to investigate his likely murder, which leads them to an eccentric group of human suspects (played by Nicholas Braun, Molly Gordon and Hong Chau, among others).

It’s a head-scratching premise that Louis-Dreyfus, 65, originally scoffed at.

“My initial reaction was, ‘Yeah, this isn’t for me,’ ” the 11-time Emmy Award winner says, seated in a Tribeca hotel on a recent afternoon. “Sheep who are detectives? I couldn’t imagine it.”

But that changed when she read the script by Craig Mazin (HBO’s “The Last of Us”), which thoughtfully explores mortality and grief ‒ surprisingly weighty themes for a PG-rated kids' flick. A natural-born leader, Lily helps band the flock together in the face of tragedy and teaches them to accept the black sheep of the bunch. In turn, they support Lily as she struggles to accept George’s death.

“It's a very unusual film in its fantasy and whimsy,” Louis-Dreyfus says. “At the same time, it has important themes of inclusion and the power of community that are particularly apt at this moment we're living through.”

Based on Leonie Swann’s 2005 novel “Three Bags Full,” the movie has an emotional throughline about memory and how our loved ones are always with us even after they die. Louis-Dreyfus believes family films can be powerful tools in broaching tough subjects with children: She herself has two sons, Henry (33) and Charlie (28), with her husband, Brad Hall.

When they were young, “I remember watching the first ‘Toy Story’ vividly,” Louis-Dreyfus says. “There’s heartbreak in that movie, and that was very meaningful to my kids growing up. It dealt with issues that were big.”

In “The Sheep Detectives,” Lily and her flock find comfort in the belief that when sheep die, they turn into clouds. In real life, many people discover solace in nature as they grieve, seeing their loved ones in everything from cardinals to rainbows. It’s an idea that resonates with Louis-Dreyfus, whose business mogul father, William, died in 2016 at age 84.

“I remember very vividly at my father's funeral, I was holding a paper and I was thinking about him,” Louis-Dreyfus recalls of speaking at his service. “Out of nowhere, a huge grasshopper jumped on top of the paper and stayed there the entire time I was reading. And I thought, ‘This is meaningful.’ ”

In recent months, the “Veep” and “Seinfeld” star has been thinking a lot about her dear friend Catherine O’Hara, who died in January from a pulmonary embolism at age 71. Both women came up in improv comedy and got their big breaks on sketch series – Louis Dreyfus on “Saturday Night Live” and O’Hara on “Second City Television” – before they moved into film and TV sitcoms.

“I looked to her as the North Star, in terms of comedy and her ability to do anything,” Louis-Dreyfus says. “She was fearless when it came to improvisation, and I can’t believe she’s gone. She left this world way too early.”

Louis-Dreyfus is partial to O’Hara’s work in Christopher Guest movies “Waiting for Guffman” and “Best in Show,” as well as her Katharine Hepburn impression on “SCTV.”

Ultimately, “there isn’t any one thing,” she says. “Everything she did was perfect.”