The actress also shared how honored she felt to be able to make people laugh, having used humor to help her get through cancer.
Being honored with major awards is always a good time for celebrities to reflect on how they got where they are today.
But, in Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ case, she’s looking back at her now cringe-worthy (hair) roots!
ET caught up with the 57-year-old Seinfeld icon before she accepted the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. on Sunday, and we couldn’t resist showing her our first interview clip with her back in 1982, shortly after ET’s launch.
In the clip, Dreyfus introduces herself before sharing that she has a cat named Wally. Asked what advice she would give that younger self, the comedian didn’t hesitate.
“Fix your hair!” she laughed, before adding, “I’m not kidding.”
Dreyfus played Elaine Bene on Seinfeld, which was led by Jerry Seinfeld and ran from July 1989 to May 1998.
“I always felt like she was the diamond,” Dreyfus reflected about Elaine. “She was the sparkle of the show that really made it the right chemistry, the right formula.”
She has since starred in Saturday Night Life, The New Adventures of Old Christine and Veep. The Mark Twain award sees her join a group of comedy elite including Eddie Murphy and Tina Fey.
“It feels like a lot and I'm quite overcome, so I'm nervous, but I'm delighted to be here,” she said before accepting the honor.
"Everybody needs to laugh, so the fact that I’ve had the opportunity to make people laugh for a living is one of the many blessings I have received in my life," she added.
But while being able to bring laughter to fans around the world may have earned Dreyfus the accolade, she shared how it was her own ability to laugh which helped her through fighting stage two breast cancer.
Diagnosed with the illness last fall, the comedian completed chemotherapy in January, then underwent surgery in February.
“I'm just happy to be here,” she added about how the difficult health battle has changed her. “I cherished my life before and now I cherish it all highlighted, cherish it.”
Earlier this month, Louis-Dreyfus talked to ET about how she decided to tackle her illness with humor.
"I normally wouldn't share such a private thing publicly," she admitted. "[However], I knew it would get out there because I knew we had to shut down production [on Veep] for a number of months in order to accommodate my situation. So, then I thought, 'Well, I'm just going to embrace this and attack it and try to do it with a sense of humor. I was really pleased with the reaction."
The actress’ former co-star, Jerry Seinfeld, came out to support her as she was honored at the event, which was also attended by Bryan Cranston, Tina Fey and Stephen Colbert. But before watching her take to the stage, Seinfeld reflected on his favorite memory with Louis-Dreyfus back in the Seinfeld days.
"I think it was the Festivus scene," the 64-year-old actor told ET, referring to the show's fictional holiday, meant to be an alternative to the Christmas season. "Yeah, that big table and we were all exhausted and it was Yom Kippur and I was fasting and we were just, we were a wreck, you know, and we're trying to do this scene, we were just laughing. Her makeup was running."
See more Louis-Dreyfus and Seinfeld below.
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