Julia Sweeney Says 'Ha!' By Michael O'Sullivan Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, April 2, 1999

Julia Sweeney explains how her life swerved toward absurdity in "God Said, 'Ha!'." (Miramax)

Of ex-boyfriend Carl, whose name appears prominently in the film version of Sweeney's one-woman show, "God Said, 'Ha!'" and who dumped her last fall, the former "Saturday Night Live" comedian and actress will speak no ill, "although I could," she says, chortling in the flat accent of her native Spokane.

"I will only speak about myself from now on," she asserts, adding as an afterthought, "Oh, I mean, I'll rant about Clinton . . . "

Actually, in a conversation with Sweeney, there is precious little ranting at all. Even when she's saying something borderline mean (such as poking fun at Shoshana Lonstein, the former Jerry Seinfeld squeeze and lingerie entrepreneur who shared honors with Sweeney at this year's "Fun, Fearless Female" awards from Cosmopolitan magazine), it somehow comes out sounding nice. Over the telephone, as in the film, Sweeney radiates a self-deprecating humor and geniality that leavens the most difficult subject matter – for example her brother Michael's death from lymphoma a few years back and her own simultaneous (and successful) battle with ovarian cancer.

That dark material found its way into a feature film via an unlikely route: stand-up comedy. From late 1994 to late 1995, Sweeney was dealing not only with her own illness but with a terminally ill brother and two daffy parents, all of whom had moved into her cozy Hollywood bungalow. To preserve her own sanity, she would mine funny and touching anecdotes from her ghastly life and tell them on the stage of the Uncabaret, a weekly alternative comedy night that features the likes of Kathy Griffin and Janeane Garofalo.

"That was my release during this year," says Sweeney, who describes the gig as "a self-help group with professionally-trained comedians." Out of tapes of her monologues, she cobbled together a successful one-woman stage play that traveled to San Francisco and New York. Eventually, it caught the eye of pal Quentin Tarantino, who urged her to film it for posterity. Now that it's in the can, the 37-year-old Sweeney says she has no plans to revive the live version.

"God no!" she laughs. "I don't know how people can do these shows for more than a year. When I got to New York, I was so emotional, my brain was, like, starting to flip out."

Although Sweeney believes that, "actors shouldn't sell themselves the way that Suzanne Somers does," she found the experience of talking about her pain in front of hundreds of people oddly liberating. "I guess now I don't have a lot of restrictions on what kind of performer I am," she says. "I thought at first I would be detroying the intimacy of my private life, but the ironic thing is I feel it's been enriched the more you're truthful."

Sweeney is currently working on a screenplay adaptation of her award-winning 1988 play "Mea's Big Apology," based on her Mea Culpa character developed while working with the Groundlings, a Los Angeles improv troupe in the mid-1980s.

Since breaking up with Carl, she's also been spending a lot of time watching movies and laser discs.

And what are some of her favorites?

Sweeney rattles off such names as "Affliction," "My Name Is Joe" and "One True Thing." When it is pointed out that those cinematic downers might remind a lot of people too much of their own lives and that many of them might prefer to, say, escape to an asteroid with Bruce Willis and blow it up, Sweeney replies almost sweetly, "I hate those people."