Julia Sweeney

0:00All that stuff, but I couldn't believe anymore. So then I had to live in a world without God. And actually, I think that's a more beautiful world, and it's a more realistic world, and I think it's a truer world. That being said, I've rejoined the Catholic Church.

0:16From the TED Audio Collective, this is Design Matters with Debbie Millman.

0:24On Design Matters, Debbie talks with some of the most creative people in the world about what they do, how they got to be who they are, and what they're thinking about and working on. On this episode, a conversation with Julia Sweeney about her career in comedy and performance, and about the attractions of Catholicism. And the music? Come on. It can't be beat.

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3:43That's a long time to get it right, and it shows in every detail. Experience the difference of Kohler Smart Toilets. Find out more at Kohler.com. Julia Sweeney is a writer, a performer, and an actor whose career has taken a path that very few people could have predicted. She first came to fame as a cast member on Saturday Night Live, where she created one of the most memorable and complicated characters of that era.

4:13She has also appeared in the Hulu series Shrill, the Showtime series Work in Progress, the Starz series American Gods, and had a recurring role on Frasier. Her performance work has broadened through a series of one-woman shows where she has shared her crises, contradictions, and questions, and created an utterly original form of storytelling that blends wit and humor with intelligence and inquiry. Her work has been performed on stages across the country, adapted into books and films, and has helped redefine how personal narrative is performed.

4:50Julia Sweeney, welcome to Design Matters. Thanks for having me. Julia, is it true you wanted to be a nun growing up simply because you liked their outfits? Well, that's partly a joke. I actually like their lifestyle as well. Oh, interesting. So you like that whole celibate, praying to God kind of... It's not the celibate part. But I went to all-girls Catholic school, and the nuns were absolutely the feminists in my particular environment. They were women who had chosen not to marry, to devote themselves to education. They all lived together in this convent.

5:25And this particular convent for my high school seemed very... I just wanted to move in. That seemed like a much better future than the future of having lots of kids, although I think that's a perfectly wonderful future for someone now. But at the time, they were the feminists, and I still see many of the nuns that way. I really do admire the nun lifestyle. So you've described growing up in Spokane as something like a Norman Rockwell painting.

5:56You were the oldest of five children in a devout, tight-knit Catholic household. You said that your family did everything as a gang. What were the kinds of things you were all doing together? Well, I have to say, this is fun for me to remember, because my mom, as we all do, changed personalities over the years. And my best memories of her are when I was really young, and there were five little kids, and she would take us out, like, strawberry gathering and do a whole strawberry with shortcake and whipped cream thing in the kitchen.

6:28Or she really loved the chaos of little kids, especially before they could question anything that she was doing, which, you know, I'm sympathetic with. And, yeah, and we laughed a lot. It was a lot of laughter in the young household. Before the drugs and alcohol really got a foothold in the family, I would say there was a lot of us all in the car together, all going out over to grandma's, all going out. We used to go out to the cemetery a lot and sit amongst all the graves. It was almost like kind of the Mexican tradition of doing that, but we were Irish Catholics, but that was just a destination, the cemetery.

7:05And so I have a lot of happy memories of that. And we all, and of course, we were going to Mass all the time, and we all went to Catholic schools. That was just, you could walk to. So we were together a lot. Given the subsequent issue with drugs and alcohol, you really became what you've described as the face of dignity in your family. How did the two realities of strawberry picking and then having to deal with really such profound issues at such a young age affect you?

7:36Well, for one thing, I'm still processing it all. So I'm still in process. But I would say where I am now, thinking about it, and this is common for families that have a lot of trauma. And that doesn't mean there isn't a lot of love and laughter, but a lot of addiction issues and a lot of difficult personality issues. It's that one of the kids kind of becomes the public face, and that was me. So like I was always doing really well at school, doing things that brought pride to the family.

8:08My parents could point to me and say, look what a good job we did. And then often there's another sibling who becomes what they call the scapegoat. And, you know, I also hate these kind of pejorative psychological stereotypes, but they hilariously fit my family. So they're useful as well. So like my brother Bill was breaking into people's houses, doing a lot of drugs, failing at school, you know, a truant. And I have so much compassion for him. I did even at the time when he was still alive.

8:41Like I remember standing on a street corner saying, do you not understand these are roles that we have been put into? Like you don't have to be that person. And I, in a lot of ways, I was just lucky enough to be a person who got assigned the role of the public facing achiever. Because, first of all, it allowed me to live, which many people didn't in my family. And it gave me the tools to process it, which the other, some of the other kids did not have. So anyway, I don't know if that answers your question.

9:12No, it does. And as I was preparing and doing my research for our interview, I was also the oldest of four, three brothers and myself. Oh, wow. I was also the sort of appointed face of dignity, overachiever, look at what Debbie's doing, which was really hard for my brothers. Yeah. Because they were, well, why can't you be like your sister? And I'm like, they don't want to be like me. I'm hiding so much stuff that they don't want to have to ever think about. Right. But it's interesting how we take on that role.

9:45And I know you also were quite a caretaker to your brothers. Oh, yeah. I was very much the caretaker and grew up thinking, I mean, I'm only just dealing with this psychologically now. From such an early age, I felt capable. That was the word. Like, I can do it. I would look at my mom and think, oh, I could do that better than you. Like, oh, you're having trouble getting the dinner on the table. That seems easy to me. You know, like, I can do that. I can clean this room. I can clean that room.

10:15And I used to think, oh, it was so narcissistic in a way. But I just, but I also don't blame myself either because I filled the needed spot. And I just thought, I can do everything and I'll have enough energy left over to do the things I want. And it's only now that I think, no, you didn't have enough energy left over to do the things you wanted. Yeah. It really took up all your energy to do that. Yeah. You've said that your instinct to make people laugh may have been tied to things not being directly addressed at home.

10:46Oh, yeah. For sure. When you think about that period now. Oh, yeah. How did those sort of two tracks of life and personality all track to each other? Well, first I had a dad with an incredibly great sense of humor and a wonderful storytelling instinct. And he exposed me to a lot of other great storytellers and comedians. So I had good role models in that way. But I now see me being able to either just rant to my girlfriends or to my siblings about what was frustrating me about our parents and then other siblings, too, was the same level of relief that my brother got from doing drugs.

11:28You know, you separated yourself from it. You got the endorphins and the dopamine hit from people laughing. You got to share in this eruption of sound of laughter over the absurdity and the inability to escape the absurdity of the situation. It worked exactly like a drug. And, yeah, what a great drug. I'm not knocking it. I'm just saying that I now see we all had our ways. So, like, my sister Meg, she just withdrew. She just withdrew into herself.

11:59In Japan. Yeah. And then she moved to Japan where she's been for 40 years. Yeah. And she said at my mom's funeral, which was last summer, Meg said, my only way to escape our mom was to literally move to the other side of the earth and learn in a completely different culture. And language. And language. That is very different Japanese culture and language. And she didn't move to Tokyo. She moved to a small, the smallest of the bigger islands in Japan in a city that has, like, 8 million people and four foreigners.

12:31I mean, like, she went there. And I just said, Meg, I feel so glad that you had the wherewithal to do that. That was a big thing to do. Well, overachieving and productivity are as addictive as anything. And also it keeps you busy so you're not really thinking about how sad it really is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All that being said, you were voted funniest girl in school year after year.

13:03That's true. What kind of humor were you developing? Was it just sort of a natural wit and whimsy or was it more of a well-thought-out way of talking about funny things, joking, the beginning of stand-up? Talk about your humor at that time. I'm not even sure. I mean, I remember my first time I got my big laugh in, I think it was second grade, there'd been an article about horse meat was being used in the local hamburger stand. It's probably not even true.

13:34Is this the bugle? The bugle thing? Yes, the bugle thing. It's funny. Okay, but it's so funny because when I told my husband that, he said, did you even make that joke up? And I said, no, I don't think so. I think I might have heard that joke somewhere. But I remembered it, or maybe it wasn't a bugle, it was something else. Anyway, I got a huge laugh and it was like somebody shot me with something, heroin or something. It was absolutely, I could feel it in my bloodstream. Like, oh God, oh, that felt good.

14:06And I guess I was good at seeing ironic things and hypocritical things, and I was good at seeing them not in a way that made people so upset, that got most of the room to laugh with me. I don't know why that is, actually. I don't think it was thought out. I just did that. At the same time, I believe you were also competing in debates. Yeah. You were writing and delivering monologues. What were you writing about back then? I remember Walcott Gibb had a thing where you memorized like a paragraph that was about a funny, it's very early David Sedaris kind of stuff.

14:44You know, like a play gone wrong. You know, somebody, I remember Ring Out Wild Bells was a Walcott Gibb short story that I memorized and performed over and over again. And it was just all about a guy who doesn't sew all the bells onto his costume before the play until he's on stage during the play. And every time he moves, the bells ring so loud, no one can hear anything. And it's just beautifully written and hilarious. So I liked that. I liked catastrophic calamity.

15:15I loved things where there's a small thing going wrong and then you're going to watch it get worse and worse and worse as the plot goes on. And, of course, my family was always a big font of material. You went on to attend the University of Washington where you served as student body vice president, continuing the overachievement. You studied economics while taking history and film classes. And is it true you were studying economics in response to your mother's very practical question about what a history degree would end up leading to?

15:52Well, my mom likes business, not because she likes business, but because she likes she came from a family, her brother, at least, and her where they just like they were very Reagan-y before Reagan, you know, like get out there and make a lot of money. And neither of those people made any money. They had no idea how to make any money. But they had this idea that business was like a club. You just had to learn a few rules. So my mom always had these ideas. She was going to have a sing-along bar.

16:22And then if you asked her any practical questions about it, she wouldn't have, you know, sad, really. She just had no idea. And then her brother would get into crazy business things. He ended up at Lompoc Prison for many years for laundering money. Like they just were terrible with money. That's how you get ahead. And you get ahead by making contacts with people. You got to get in there and know. It's not about skills. It's about who you know. So she kept pushing me to have a business degree.

16:54And then I didn't want to do that. I have no interest in that. But I did. I was interested in economics, mostly the economics of the poor. I was really kind of a socialist, almost communist, like when it was not fashionable, when Reagan was running for president. And I loved it. So I thought I'll just take an economics class to kind of satisfy my mother. Who, by the way, they weren't even paying for my college. Why was I even listening to them? But somehow I thought, oh, I have to do what they say, even though I'm paying for my own college. Dutiful daughter. I know. Dutiful daughter. And I took economics 101.

17:24And I would say one of my, not big regrets. Everything's turned out okay. But I wish I had stuck with economics. Because I still to this day can't get enough of economics. I love it. But in a big scale. Not in a business way. But like economics of the world kind of way. One piece of advice that she did give you that I was really inspired by, she was talking about who you were going to marry. And you said you wanted to marry a doctor. And she said, don't marry a doctor. Be a doctor.

17:55I know. That was good. It's so funny. I'm sure at least two years later she'd say, oh, marry a doctor. For a lot of sad reasons. But, you know, that was why when you were talking about your brother and somebody had said in the family, oh, I wish somebody had married a doctor. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, like everyone, she had a lot of contradictory things to say. I think she mostly wanted me to marry somebody wealthy to take care of me. That's kind of what you did. And that's common for women, you know. Well, mothers back then, we're in the same generation.

18:26So they wanted us to be well taken care of. This was probably before women could even have credit cards. Yes. Oh, yeah, for sure. Oh, I have so many sad stories about that. My mom trying to save money because she was going to leave my dad, but she didn't have any money. And, like, getting $50 together. I mean, like, the saddest. Yeah. Yeah. While you were in school, you were essentially living in a movie theater. You were working there, working long hours at the Varsity Theater. What were you learning about storytelling from watching that volume of films?

18:59Well, I was lucky, lucky, lucky to go to the University of Washington. And my first week, I met Jim Emerson, who became and still is a lifelong great friend. And he became a film critic and lived in L.A. and worked for the Orange County Register for many years as a film critic. So, film lover. And then my film professors, Richard and Kathleen, I loved both of them. I took all the film classes. And we all were going to movies. And then I was part of the founding of the Seattle Film Society, this little group with little mimeographed essays about different films.

19:29And so, working at the movie theater, they only had curtains. I had to hear the movies over and over again. So, there's a few movies that I really almost know by heart. And watching people coming in and out, watching the film over and over again. I dated the projectionist for a while. And we both could, you know, it's very sexy and great. And then just being around these wonderful people who kind of taught me about storytelling. Yet, you moved to Los Angeles intending to work in accounting in the film industry.

20:02I need to just say this again. You moved to Los Angeles to become an accountant. Yes. That's right. You know, Bob Newhart also did that. Oh, I didn't know that. Yes. We bonded over that. He told me I was the only other one besides him. So, it's the two of us. He did a lot better in the comedy department. But I just wanted to be near show business. I couldn't imagine having the guts to say I wanted to be in show business. I would never have thought that. Why? I don't know.

20:32I just didn't let myself dream like that. I just thought, I'll be an accountant on a film and then I'll be around it all. Well, your dream job, your dream accounting job that you'd been promised at NGM Studios fell through. When you got a job as an assistant bartender selling drink tickets at a downtown hotel, this next series of questions is really part of, I think, the Julia Sweeney mythology as reported by Ira Glass and Marc Maron and so forth. But we do have to talk about it because it's so funny.

21:05But during that experience, after finding out that your employer wouldn't pay for your parking at the hotel you were working, you essentially became a criminal. I did become a criminal. You became a criminal. And I'm telling you, I still think about that. Every week at some moment, I'll think of that. But it's also interesting how easy it was to become a criminal. So talk about what happened. Tell our audience that might not have heard the This American Life episodes with Ira Glass or your interview with Marc Maron. Tell us what happened. Well, I was working at this hotel and they didn't pay for parking. And parking was like $15.

21:35And there was no place to park near this hotel. It was downtown. And downtown was really being developed. And it was like scary to be parking far away. So I was paying for the parking. And I told them I wanted them to pay. They wouldn't pay. And then I just thought, I'm going to just sell some drink ticket. I'm going to take drink tickets they don't know about and sell them on the side enough to pay for the parking. And that was easy enough. But then I thought, they also didn't pay for my meal. And sometimes I have to work like 12 hours.

22:07So I'll take enough to pay for the meal. And then it really just kept going. Like I just kept, like it was so easy to do. And over the years I worked there, it did add up to like an amount of money that if I wasn't talking about myself years later, I could have been convicted for. But it really made me understand how easy it is to get into a situation like that where you just start taking a little bit, taking a little bit more.

22:40You started doing what you described as really kind of nutty things where you would increase the danger of it. Yeah, right. And I've described it as if you were flirting with getting caught. Yeah. So in terms of the way in which you were taking the money, what kinds of things were you doing? Like I would, I had a Volkswagen bug and I would have the money that I had taken and I would just leave it on the seat of the car and not lock the car. Like I wonder. Was it ever stolen?

23:10No. But like that's really nutty behavior. Yeah. Things like that. I can't even remember the other things. It's actually so shameful. It's so shameful. It's, I feel so filled with regret over that. I mean, it just was like, it's like I'm talking about someone else. Well, I think that, not to be your psychologist in any of this, but from what I understand from myself and from others, when you're taking something that you haven't been, you often, people that haven't been given a lot or have been neglected.

23:47Will take things that they maybe aren't supposed to, to fulfill the need of being taken care of because they were so neglected. And so here was another situation of neglect and enough time has passed. I know the statute of limitations have run out on being arrested. But you describe feeling as high as you have ever felt in your life and that you never really had that particular feeling again. Wow. I love that you're talking about this.

24:17Yeah, it was really high. I, I am a risk taker, you know, like I can see, especially now my daughter, who's 26, who's really not a risk taker. I can see how much of a risk taker I was. And my brother Bill was like that too. Meg was, well, I guess maybe in some ways you could say we all were. But we got our kicks from having to conform to the world and the things we had to make ourselves do. We had an outlet for that. That was either putting ourselves at risk by like, in my case, taking the stuff that did not belong to me.

24:53Or for my brother, he would do physical acts of things. He would throw himself on his bike over like a hill, like he would do crazy physical things. And now I can just see how much of a thrill. And then you get away with it. So it's like, I remember just thinking at the time, like, I'm doing something for me right now. Like, and so to me that says I was doing a lot of things in my life that weren't for me really. Right. And then I had to find some way that I did something for me. But you were also at the same time going to church every Sunday and donating.

25:24Oh, yes. Some of the money back to the church. I mean, if all the money I've given away over all these years was somehow fueled by my guilt of taking that money, I guess maybe the world is better off. I have no idea. But I, and it's also the craziness of religion because of the religious dictates and how you're supposed to be and how you, it's not even what they tell you. It's how you're presenting yourself, how you feel about yourself when you're in church, you're congratulating yourself, you're imagining you're being approved by a deity for being there. You're conforming, you're literally kneeling, standing, praying, you're doing things in conformity.

25:58I, that's all of a piece. It's like whenever I see a truly strong, law-conforming, religious-type speak, I just, every person, except for our Pope, who I love. Pope Leo. Pope Leo. Oh, my God. Talk about risk-taking. No, I know. I mean, I think he's the real deal in terms of wonderfulness. But you can feel it when you see these religious people. And I always think, what else are you doing? What are you doing behind the scenes that's making you be like that right now?

26:31Because I always think, like, we're all like an octopus who has, like, eight crazy things we want to do, like legs. And you can't pull them all in at once. Like, one of them's going to go flying out. Yeah. And I guess for me, that's how I balanced it out, by going to church. Yeah. Well, you said that your relationship with God felt very bound up in what was happening. Oh, yeah. Well, first of all, I thought God was telling me to do it. Interesting. Not like, that makes me really seem like I had lost my nut. But I... This is a long time ago. No, but I really felt like...

27:02It's so funny because I've evolved so much in this thinking. But at the time, I thought, well, I wouldn't have had the thought of taking this money without this opportunity that came my way. And God is making sure all these opportunities are coming my way. I mean, you could spin it any way. I mean, I could have thought, God's testing me to see if I'll do something, even though no one would know if I did that thing. But somehow, for me, it was, oh, I'm going to do this thing because God's showing me this opportunity.

27:36And it is unfair they're not paying for parking. And it is unfair they're not paying for my lunch. And so I almost felt like it was directed by God in a way that way. In a really... Like, I really get it when I see characters or people, how they can justify these things. Yeah. How did you... You were never caught. How did you finally stop? I was fired, but not for that.

28:02It turned out a lot of my fellow bartenders were dealing cocaine at the hotel, which I knew nothing about. They never said anything to me about it. I was so naive about those kinds of drugs. I didn't do those kinds of drugs. I'm sure I just presented myself as somebody you would never tell them. I don't think I seemed like a snitch or anything they'd have to worry about, but just probably very innocent. And about those drugs, I was very innocent. And it turned out all these people were dealing drugs that I was hanging out with all the time.

28:36Like, we were kind of a gang. We were going out after work. We were friends. And they put me with that. They fired all of them. And then they came in and questioned me. And I honestly said, I have nothing to do... And I couldn't even believe it. And they fired me along with all of them somehow, justifiably. And I was working as an accountant anyway in the daytime, so it didn't matter if I had that job. But I was upset that I didn't know about the cocaine. Like, I couldn't... I felt so betrayed by those guys.

29:07Not that I would have done it, but that I thought we were so close. Isn't it interesting how much we don't know about the people? Yeah, and I was so disillusioned by everything. It was like, for three years, they never even said anything about it. Or I didn't pick up on it. Well, interestingly, if they did follow your career and found out from listening to Ira Glass or Marc Maron that you had done that, they might have had the same feeling. Like, she was doing all that and she didn't share it with us. I actually think they also were doing that, but I don't.

29:39I never talked to them about it.

29:42You did finally get your coveted job as an accountant at Columbia Pictures. But when you were 25, you read an ad for a company called The Groundlings. Yes. And they were offering classes for non-professionals. Yes. Tell us what The Groundlings is slash was and why you signed up. Well, The Groundlings, that I'm still very involved with, is an improv comedy group in L.A. that's been around since 1974.

30:12And one of their founding members is like Lorraine Newman, who ended up on SNL, one of the first cast of SNL, who's now a good friend. I was working as an accountant. Oh, they had come to me and said, we'll send you to either law school or to get an MBA, but then you really have to sign on to the company, you know, because they're going to pay for that. And I remember driving to work crying, thinking, I'm so honored, but I don't like this job. Like, it's not fun for me. I don't want to be better at being an accountant.

30:45I have no interest in getting better at this. So then I read a review of The Groundlings, and I hadn't even seen The Groundlings, but it said, you know, non-professionals, like, because a lot, actually, I'm trying to convince my daughter to take an improv class at The Groundlings. She's a gaming coder, but it's like, it's good for everyone to take improv. And so I went down and I interviewed and I got in a class and I immediately knew that I wanted to be in comedy. Just, it was just, oh, yes, I have to completely change my life. Like, this has to happen now.

31:16And then I had Phil Hartman as a teacher. We became good friends. I met my first real friends at The Groundlings. Like, I'm still friends with these friends. It's like what most people who had a great college experience, that's my Groundlings. I'm still in their lives. I've still followed all of them. They've followed me four times a year. I have a Groundling alumni party. I see a lot of them. So I found my home with The Groundlings. And then The Groundlings was a feeder to Saturday Night Live. So I immediately started on the track of trying to get on Saturday Night Live through The Groundlings.

31:48But you said you weren't very good at first and even failed the first level. Yes, I did. I failed the first level. How does somebody get better at being funny? Oh, there's a lot of ways. Well, having a baseline comedic view of the world, I don't know if you can teach that. Although you might. But some people, I now realize, just aren't going to look the world that way. So that I don't know if you can be taught. But you can absolutely be taught how to be funny. There are rules. There's some rules of surprise.

32:19There's improv rules of going along with the premise and then bringing information in this way. There's tools like they have like change the stage picture. Have a big emotional response. Just start crying or start laughing. And then justify it as you go with something by – comedy is a lot about surprise and unexpected points of view. And you can 100% learn that. How did you get better? Was it through learning? Through working? It was just the 10,000 hours of being on stage and being bad a lot of the time.

32:50And then – and being around other people who are good. Watching a lot of comedy. And also, I won't say that I had an innate proclivity for it. But it definitely is like music or something. Like you have to be able to hear the notes. But you can be trained to be good at it. I think it's the same with comedy. So you were at the same time working as an accountant and going to study at the Groundlings and performing and building your comedic talent.

33:21How did you get the audition for Saturday Night Live? Well, SNL people would come all the time. So John Lovitz had just gotten on and, of course, Lorraine had been on and now I'm thinking other people. But it was just a place they checked out. Mostly Second City in Chicago. That's where most of the people came from. Like when I was on SNL, it was kind of half stand-up, half improv people. And they're very different, the improv and the stand-up people. But we all seem to get along. But you can really tell stand-ups have a different set of rules than improvisational comedians have.

33:54But they always looked at Second City and the Groundlings. And it just seemed like for a year, increasingly slightly more important people associated with Saturday Night Live would be in the audience. And, of course, we'd all hear about it and trying to do our best. Anyway, and then it came down to me and… Kathy Griffin and Lisa Kudrow. Yes. And when… Right. Well, it's so funny because I actually didn't include… I thought it was just me and Lisa Kudrow. And then Kathy in the last few years said, no, me too. And that very well may have been. In my mind, my competition was Lisa Kudrow.

34:24Not that Kathy wasn't great. Kathy was great. And then when I got it, I thought, oh, God, I hope that Lisa Kudrow gets something. I hope she does something with herself. Because she is good, you know?

34:38Oh, Phoebe. Yes, exactly.

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36:58You were at Saturday Night Live during a period with one of the most distinctive ensembles. You were there along with performers who would go on to define the decade. Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Chris Farley, Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, Phil Hartman, John Lovitz, Kevin Nealon, David Spade. Very male-centric. Oh, yeah. And you know what makes me the saddest about that? And I talk about this with, like, Lorraine and other people who were there with me. I was, of course, upset about it because there were so few opportunities for women.

37:29But I simultaneously completely bought into the paradigm. I did. Well, leaving your most famous character as androgynous. Right. Androgynous, Pat. I thought, okay. I mean, women have come up with incredibly good characters. But I think it isn't completely an accident that an androgynous character hit with me. But also, I did not want more women there. Why? Because it's competition. I mean, like, for me, there was always three women. So it was Jan Hooks, Victoria Jackson, and I, which, by the way, I got along great with both those women.

38:03And we both cheered each other on and put each other in stuff. We were very good with each other. But we didn't want more women there. I mean, like, more women meant the few parts. It was just, what shocks me now is how much I accepted it. And I think it wasn't until Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, really Tina Fey mostly because she did the news and all that. I mean, Tina Fey is like a once-in-a-generation talent that comes along in my mind. And she, out of just unbelievable force and talent and luck, I'm sure, too, but mostly her ability.

38:36And by the way, I've only met her one time, so it's not even like I'm friends with her. But she changed the culture of SNL single-handedly, I think. Like, everything was different. And even reading her book, The Girl Boss or whatever it's called, I learned so much myself and was so embarrassed about not even thinking about doing, let alone doing, not even thinking to do what she did. Again, totally different time. Yeah. The fact that there were even three women on a show with that large a cast, with that many famous men, was pretty revolutionary.

39:13Yeah. And your character was so revolutionary. So Pat first began in his skit at the Groundlings. Yeah. How did Pat first come to you? Well, when I had worked as an accountant, I worked with somebody who was very much like Pat, which now I realize was probably autistic or on the spectrum. I did not have any words for that. I just thought, first of all, I really liked this guy. It was a guy. I later incorporated qualities of a woman and another guy into this guy because there was another person who was very influential in the past.

39:44But the initial idea was this guy. It was a guy. And I was just going to do it as a guy. And by the way, like, when I see, like, Kate McKinnon do all these, like, now the women routinely play guys, I wouldn't have even have thought of that. Yeah, but you started that. Yeah, okay. Well, I don't know. Julia, you have to give yourself some credit here. Well, I guess I did think initially I'll just play it as a guy. And then I thought, oh, no, you can't play it as a guy. And then nobody knew. Yeah, nobody knew. And then I thought, well, let's just make that we don't know if it's a man or a woman.

40:16I actually thought that was a side joke. I thought the joke was how annoying Pat was and that Pat stood too close and asked you too many questions too close and didn't pick up on social cues and drooled a lot. I mean, really, when I think of it, it's, like, completely offensive. You never do that now. But I just thought that was funny. And, by the way, it was funny because I couldn't get away from this person. They worked right next to me and I couldn't get away from them. All day I had to deal with this person. So that was funny to me.

40:47So to me it was, like, annoying coworker. And maybe you don't know if it's a man or a woman. And then that, of course, got the biggest laugh when I did it at the Groundlings. And I was like, oh, well, that's easy. We'll just write a few jokes about if it's a man or a woman. And then that, of course, became the whole thing. So it kind of evolved into that. Once Pat moved into a platform like Saturday Night Live, what changed in how the character was – or did anything change in how the character was written or performed? Well, first I had the – I was lucky enough to have the most incredible writing staff coming up with ideas too.

41:20So first it was Christine Zander and I. We actually wrote every Pat sketch, but we had a lot of assist from a lot of incredible writers. And Cheryl Hardwick, who was running the band, helped come up with a theme song. So I had a huge benefit, I mean, by people coming up with really funny ideas and our ideas. And then Pat did become a little more transgressive, a little more androgynous. It was a little more about – well, that was interesting to me to challenge the idea of male-female stuff.

41:51So like by the time it became that, it was like, yeah, well, why are haircuts – why do they cost different for men and women? And why are these products on the shelves at the drugstore for women twice as much as the ones for men and they're the same product? So there was a lot of things that were kind of political and about gender that I did care about. And then it did become a little more like that about androgyny itself. You spent four seasons at Saturday Night Live. When you think about leaving or when you were thinking about leaving, did it feel like something ending or something beginning?

42:25Because you went on to do so many more interesting things. Not that that wasn't interesting. I love the way you're framing this because in my mind I say – I tell myself the story so different. Oh, really? Yeah. Well, I've read all your memoirs. I've seen all your shows. Sort of feels to me looking at the outside. I mean the average length of a tenure at Saturday Night Live is about four years or so. Yeah. Well, then now people stay a lot longer. Yeah. Then the maximum was five years. Well, first I left before the end of my contract. I remember my representative saying, don't leave until you have something else lined up.

42:56Well, you had done the movie. You started working. Yeah, the movie. And then the movie was a big bomb. My brother got sick. That was kind of the beginning of my sort of seeing through show business. Like it wasn't that exciting to me anymore. I am missing this kind of drive to really make it in a big mainstream way in me because – for good reasons and bad reasons. I mean like I'm not even making a judgment about it. I just don't – I can see other people that had this drive to really go and create the show for themselves that I just didn't have.

43:32You know, like I really didn't have that. But yeah, I did end up getting cast on things and yeah, it all turned out fine. But I look back and think about the opportunities I had that I really just threw away. I didn't follow up on them. Or like I took like six months out of two years each year to just travel around the world mostly by myself before I adopted my daughter at the time when I – like I didn't realize that all the opportunities were going to go away for like creating a show of my own.

44:05Like there was a very small window for that that I see now and I – I'm not even regretful. My life turned out great. But I'm just shocked at myself that I was walking around that much opportunity and I was just throwing it away right and left. Well, I mean, immediately after the film's release – and I think it's interesting looking at a life from two different perspectives. The person who's living it, the person who's viewing it. But immediately after the film's release, your brother was diagnosed with cancer. Yeah. Then you were diagnosed with cancer.

44:36Right. So you had taken your earnings from Saturday Night Live, bought a house in Los Angeles, two-bedroom I believe, two-bedroom house. I'm still there. Yep. Your entire family moved into the little house that you bought with your savings and a house you intended to be a private sanctuary to help care for first your brother and then you. Yes. So the idea of judging yourself during that time feels a little harsh but – Okay, good. I guess – I mean, I don't – it's more like I'm 66 now and it's sort of like – I feel like you start waking up in your 60s and going –

45:11I agree. Like, oh, wait, who was I and why did I do that and – oh, that's funny. Oh, I can see some things and then other things I'm still trying to figure out and some things will always be a mystery because life is a mystery in a lot of ways. And so anyway, I guess that's where it's coming from. I'm in this time where I'm like, huh. Well, I think as a person nearly the same age, I feel like I definitely understand that looking back at decisions. Why did I do that? What motivated that? And I actually had a friend recently say, wait, what is the story you're telling yourself about your 20s?

45:45Can I just remind you of this and this and this? Isn't that great? Oh, yeah. I wasn't such a failure maybe. Yeah. So totally get it. Yeah. So thank you. Well, also I think looking at the ways in which you've developed your craft, the one-woman shows, the films, the books, the other TV opportunities that you've had, that seems pretty – they seem pretty amazing to me. And as somebody that's sort of lived in your life the last couple of months working on this, you know, you use these real-life experiences to create material that resonates, that's really real and in a very different way than your work was on Saturday Night Live.

46:27Oh, yeah. Definitely. You started performing monologues at Un Cabaret in Los Angeles, which has a really interesting way of presenting monologue. It has to be different every time, new material. So you started performing at Un Cabaret stories about your family, stories about what you were experiencing. And those monologues became part of a larger effort that became a one-woman show you titled God Said Ha, which was about what you'd intended for that time to be and what that time ended up being.

47:04What was that like to see those experiences turn into monologues, then a one-woman show, then a one-woman show that was at the Lyceum Theater on Broadway, then a film, then a memoir? How do you translate that material into such distinct entities? Well, first of all, it wasn't that distinct. It was pretty much the same material over and over again. But secondly— But in different formats that felt very— Yes. The different formats still felt like they had a lot of— And there was a pilot in there.

47:34Oh, I didn't know. We had a pilot for a TV show. It didn't go. But like, yeah, I mean, I guess what I have to say about that now is there's this double-edged sword— Well, first of all, I'm so glad I did that because I would have forgotten all those things about my family. If I hadn't been doing the Uncab and they weren't recording it, which I was, like, barely aware they were recording it, I would have forgotten 80% of the crazy shit that went down. Like, I really would not have remembered it. And I was so thankful, you know, to Beth and Greg, who were running the Uncab, who they gave me all these tapes of myself.

48:08Like, I had forgotten so many things that had happened during that whole cancer year, that terrible time. So if I hadn't turned it into a show and then a book and then a Broadway show and then a stage show and then a TV pilot, blah, blah, blah, I wouldn't have remembered all those things. On the other hand, turning all that stuff into a narrative almost hijacks your memory, your authentic memory of things. I mean, I guess the alternative is forgetting about it, so that's not good.

48:39Although sometimes I think it is good. It becomes—because we all know how the brain works, what you remember is what you repeat. So even though everything I said in that was true, I obviously rearranged it to be a dramatic narrative that built and then had a crescendo and so forth. So I had to—like, I'd always say, everything's true, but not necessarily in the order I'm telling it. Okay. And now I just remember what I wrote. Like, I—that time what I remember is telling the story on stage, not the actual memory.

49:12It's probably easier that way. Yeah. Given it was about cancer. Yeah. It's just a reminder of how ephemeral life is, because it would have gone away, I wouldn't have remembered it. I'm glad I remembered it, but then even the remembrance of it isn't exactly how it went. Right. Now I just remember the telling of it, which is a different thing. And that's how life is, and that's how it's going to keep going, and then I'll vanish, and then everything will vanish around me. The world will continue on.

49:42I was thinking about—somebody had written about how they wonder who the last person on Earth will be that will remember their name. Oh, wow. That's great. And I thought that was so profound. Yeah, it is. Well, I keep—in fact, I've had to tell myself to stop saying this, because I've been saying—I've been going around going, in a hundred years, no one's going to know you ever existed. In a hundred years, no one—no one's going to think of you in a hundred years. Do you know how short a hundred years is? Babies born right now who are going to end up being a hundred, by the time they die, no one on Earth is going to know anything about you.

50:19One word. Well, two words. Yeah. The internet. Yes. All of your work lives on the internet. Okay, but I have this new idea. Tell me. I want to erase myself completely from the world by the time I die. Why? Because I don't like that. You don't like that you've left these remnants of yourself? No. I don't. I feel like it's private. Like, I didn't—when I was doing these things and starting out, and there wasn't an internet, I was just somebody telling stories in a theater. And then, yes, it became a film.

50:51So on some level, I understood that. And a book that I understood that. But it's not like a book that's going to live forever. It's not, you know, Cervantes writing Don Quixote or something. I mean, it's just something that's going to be around and then go away. And then the internet, this permanent record. I just don't like it. Like, I really—sometimes I see those ads where they can go and wipe you away from the internet. It's like, sign me up, man. Like, I just want to—it's not that I'm not proud of what I did.

51:23I guess I just feel—there's a part of me that just feels like, no, no, I'm going to vanish. And I don't like the idea of things about me hanging around after I'm gone. What about your daughter? Well, she'll remember me and her—I hope—and who the person she becomes is influenced by me in a positive way. It doesn't even have to be memories of actually me. It can be just the way she sees things or does things or how she treats people. Like, I know I sound like so—I can just hear myself. I sound so sanctimonious.

51:54I don't know. There's something about me that doesn't like it. Well, in God Said Ha, your belief in God is still present. Maybe this has something to do with— Yes. —back to religion. But in God Said Ha, your belief in God is still very much present. It's part of the world you're living in. But by your next one-woman show, Letting Go of God, you're really examining belief itself, which seems like you're still doing in a lot of ways. How are you feeling about the notion of God and religion now?

52:25We're going to have to do this podcast for a really long time. I know. And I know we can't. I knew that was going to happen when they gave me the time slot. So much to say about that. And my bottom line is, I really did believe in God. And I needed to believe in God. And I understand the benefits of people who need to believe in God. Because my one-sentence thing is that it's an imaginary loving force that's watching you and knows you. We want to be known. We create this fantasy figure that knows us and watches over us.

52:55And that is 100% beneficial, especially if you didn't get that from actual people. Okay. So I didn't really get that from actual people, but I got it from God. Okay. And then I really relied on God. And I really loved the idea of God. And I wanted to be a nun. I love the Catholic Church. And then I had a few religious experiences, I would say. And then I had a religious experience where I had a big breakup. And I couldn't get over it for a really long time. And I was crying a lot and really at my wit's end.

53:26And just huge grief over this relationship ending. And I thought God really came to me in the middle of the night. And now I realize it was probably this prefrontal seizure or whatever they call it that happened. But I felt like a light came in the room and said, you're going to be okay. It was a loving feeling. All great. But then another part of my brain was like, what was that? So then I started on like two years of what was that? And at the end of two years, you can go watch Letting Go of God if you want to know the play-by-play. I realized I couldn't believe that there is a God.

53:56And I could understand why people believed. And I could understand why it could be beneficial to believe. And all that stuff. But I couldn't believe anymore. So then I had to live in a world without God. And actually, I think that's a more beautiful world. And it's a more realistic world. And I think it's a truer world. That being said, I've rejoined the Catholic Church. This is something I didn't know. No, it's only happened since November. Why and how and... Okay, I'm still an atheist.

54:24I can't imagine that changing. I just know too much about it. Well, you believe in science, so... Yeah. And I don't even have a motivation for that to change. That being said, the comfort that I feel completely from it coming from my childhood... I was just telling my husband today, one of the great things about going to Mass is that I can't be on my phone for an hour. Like, just sitting there in a beautiful space. The church I go to is very beautiful. With candles lit and incense and saying words that are ridiculous, but that are familiar to me.

55:02And I'm chanting them with a group. And the music, come on. It can't be beat. It just can't be beat. And I just have accepted that I'm going to go to this church. And I look forward to it. And I love it. And somehow, because this particular church doesn't do their Masses in English... It's Latin? Yeah, no. No, it's Korean, Filipino, and Spanish. How fabulous. And then a little English. Yeah, no, it's a great church. And even though it's a very conservative church, they have a lot of right-to-life stuff going on there.

55:37And somehow, before when I visited that church, I was so upset about that, I couldn't go back. And now I'm just like, okay, I disagree with so much here. Or that's just one of the things. And hearing things said in a different language is helpful. I know I said to Michael, my husband, they never should have changed the Mass from Latin because I would have still gone all the way. Because I get very tripped up by hearing the words. Yeah. I actually went to a Mass. I visited my wife's sister-in-law and her niece.

56:12And she was in a play, fantastic play, back in 2025. And they go to church every Sunday as a family. And I went with them. I'm Jewish. But I really wanted to be with them and spend as much time with them as I could. Wow. This is something really important that they do every week for their family. And I have to tell you, the singing, the joy, the being kind to each other, which was so much of what this was about. It really wasn't so much about a higher power as it was about each person's ability to be the highest they could be in the world with kindness and generosity and giving.

56:51I was like, okay, sign me up. Like, it really felt, not that I want to convert at all, but there was something about the notion of being the best we could possibly be to each other, which felt like if this is what our leaders are talking about, you know, being good Christians. Yeah. I was like, maybe go to church and see what they're saying to really remind yourselves of what that means. Because it's not about fighting and it's not about taking away from others. It's about actually, for me, it felt very spiritual.

57:24Yeah. And I still am a science person, you know. I'm still like, where did the helium and the hydrogen come from? Right. Let's talk about that as our origin story, not, you know, and then there was light. In any case, do you feel that coming back to the church is changing how you feel spiritually about your life? Well, first of all, I hate that word spiritual because I think it's just corrupt all the way around. I always just think, can't you say something like profound or meaningful? I feel like it's magic.

57:55Well. In a good way. Like, in a good way. Yeah. Magic in the non-superstitious way or the non-magic in the way where there is an explanation for how it happens. Um, I am more, I don't know. It's like, I don't even think of it that way. I think of it as the human condition. What helps the human condition? What are we drawn to? Obviously, ritual and thinking about a higher power thing, coming together, music, repetitive gestures have been a balm and a soothing thing and a community strengthening thing from the beginning.

58:39Any kind of tribe. All those things are part of it. That is a big part of the human connection and condition and to not have that is kind of cheating myself out of a human legacy that has been corrupted and manipulated and part of a dominance power structure and all that kind of stuff. But has also been an advancing, wonderful thing, too. And I'm just going to not overthink it. I'm just going to go enjoy it.

59:10And, yes, I'm going to laugh about it and I'm going to be angry about certain parts of it and sad about certain parts of it. But I'm also going to see what's great about it. And that they all greet themselves there with, may peace be with you. Oh, I know. I love that. Peace and all the peace, peace. Oh, please. That's what we need. Peace, peace. And also, I've been doing this Bible Studies Academy thing. Anyway, I've been studying the Bible really closely for the last couple of years. And now I'm in the middle of this big, like, 47 class thing that I'm doing online about the first two centuries of Christianity, which, by the way, is so screwed up.

59:48There's so many screwed up things about it. And who won out this idea over this person and how much got changed and how much retroactively got changed in the Gospels. And, I mean, it's hard to know what was even there to begin with. Okay. Still in all, the attraction of those groups to be together and saying, peace be with you, those things were always there. And that is really powerful to me, that that feeling was there. After letting go of God, your work continues to evolve. It's continued to evolve.

1:00:19It's moving away from a single defining crisis into something broader, time-aging perspective. And in your most recent show, Older and Wider, greatest name of all time for a show, you're no longer working through one central event. You're drawing from a lifetime of experience. What has changed for you and how you've decided what belongs in a peace? Well, I'm not, I'm just, I'm not deciding that anymore because I'm not doing that anymore. You're not going to do any more one-woman shows? No. Well, I don't think so.

1:00:50I hate to speak for my future self. You haven't done one in a while. My present self. No, no, I'm really done. When I did Older and Wider, I was, first of all, there's physical limitations to it. I don't know how you memorize all of that. Well, the memorizing I can do. I'm not worried about the memorizing. I'm, my voice doesn't hold up. I can't, I mean, I could do something maybe on the internet or something, but then I don't want it. I don't like social media. I don't like that whole, I'm not, I really don't like it. It's like, it's not fun to be famous anymore.

1:01:22It's like, for some time it was kind of fun. And now, like, the followers and the responses and who noticed what you said. And I just can't, and you have to do that if you're doing stage performance. And then that, along with my voice not holding out, then I think when my mom died, I realized I didn't care about being famous. It's not, I don't like the word famous. I didn't care about being notable anymore. Like, I just didn't want to be a notable person. Well, maybe you just are intrinsically notable now.

1:01:54That's right. No, truly. No, but I guess I just, I don't know. I like it when, if people, I just bought a book and I just was in Spokane and there's Auntie's bookstore there and I love it. And I bought a few books there and a guy was telling me about letting go of God and he watches it every year with his family and how it means so much. And I, and then of course I laughed and said, you know, I have joined a Catholic church now that I go to every Sunday. Things have changed. I have a feeling there might be a show in there, Julia, just saying to your future self. But, um, so that's meaningful to me, a hundred percent.

1:02:26That's meaningful to me, but I got off on people knowing me as a sparkly special person and I