At some point in almost every performance she gives, Julia Louis-Dreyfus has this look. If you’ve watched “Seinfeld,” “The New Adventures of Old Christine” or “Veep,” you know it — the perfect mix of irritation and defiance. As if she were saying, Try me.

Louis-Dreyfus’s performances in those shows — from the eccentrically self-actualized Elaine Benes in “Seinfeld” to the completely un-self-aware Selina Meyer in “Veep” — were comedic master classes. But in recent years, she has been moving toward more introspective and serious work. Still, that “try me” vibe remains. She hosts a wonderful hit podcast called “Wiser Than Me,” in which she interviews older, famous, often (necessarily) sharp-elbowed women — Billie Jean King, Sally Field, Carol Burnett and Debbie Allen, to name a few — about their lives and careers and the crap they’ve all navigated. Last year she starred as a frustrated novelist and wife in the writer-director Nicole Holofcener’s movie “You Hurt My Feelings,” the second collaboration between the two women about the struggles of middle age. In her newest movie, “Tuesday,” which opens nationwide on June 14, Louis-Dreyfus plays a mother whose teenage daughter has a terminal illness. It’s a surreal, dark fairy tale that she was nervous about taking on. (She’s also got a recurring role in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: She was shooting “Thunderbolts” when we talked.)