Julia Louis-Dreyfus remembers ‘Enough Said’ costar James Gandolfini

Julia Louis-Dreyfus had never met James Gandolfini before being cast opposite him in “Enough Said,” a comedy that will premiere in September at the Toronto International Film Festival before arriving in theaters Sept. 20.

“I liked him right away,” Louis-Dreyfus says of Gandolfini, who died in June at age 51 from a heart attack. “What was so fascinating to me immediately was that he’s a very mild, dear, thoughtful fellow, very much like the character he plays in the film. He isn’t like Tony Soprano at all, even though he sure looks like Tony Soprano.”

Talking about Gandolfini, Louis-Dreyfus never strays from the present tense. She still has a difficult time wrapping her mind around his unexpected death.

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“It was just brutal, just brutal,” she says quietly, “and very, very sad.”

In “Enough Said,” Louis-Dreyfus plays Eva, a recently divorced mother facing an empty nest with her daughter about to leave for college. Eva meets a sweet man (Gandolfini) in the same predicament and a romance blossoms -- until she discovers that this man is the hated former husband of a new friend.

Nicole Holofcener (“Please Give,” “Lovely & Amazing”) wrote and directed the movie, which was shot in Los Angeles in August and September 2012.

“Jim was so nervous,” Louis-Dreyfus says, “because it was outside his comfort zone in a way. But he’s extraordinary in it. I’m so happy people are going to see this aspect of him. It’s a gorgeous performance.”

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