On Monday, April 11, Ms. Louis-Dreyfus, 55, who was in New York to host the April 16 broadcast of “Saturday Night Live” (where she spent a few exasperating years as a cast member in the 1980s), was seated in the lobby lounge of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, dressed in workout clothes and rectangular eyeglasses and sipping coffee as she spoke about her and her characters’ ascents.

In these excerpts from that conversation, Ms. Louis-Dreyfus discussed her time on “Veep” and its lessons for the 2016 race; the sexism she sees in Washington and in Hollywood; and how she is still learning to swear like a proper United States president.

This will be the second season of “Veep” in which Selina Meyer has actually been the president of the United States. Where can the show possibly go from here?

Originally, when Armando [Iannucci, the “Veep” creator and former showrunner] said, “What do you think? Let’s make her president,” I was like, yeah, sure, that sounds cool. And then after we’d done it, we were like, we just painted ourselves into this corner. But what’s good about this situation, comedically, is that even though she becomes president, it’s eluding her. She has not a moment to revel in this so-called accomplishment, which she got by default. She has to immediately campaign for the position. She has to quickly figure out some sort of legacy that she can create for herself. So it seems as if everything is just a grab away for this poor, ridiculous woman.

So her holding the highest office in the land hasn’t changed the show’s basic premise?

Well, nothing is as it seems, right? Frankly, look at Obama and his Supreme Court nominee. He’s ostensibly the most powerful person in the world and look how he’s being stymied. And that’s a grand and noble [duty]. We don’t do that kind of thing on our show. We’re anti-grand and anti-noble.