When Julia Sweeney, ’82, checked into a U District hotel a few months ago, her name covered the marquee at the Neptune Theater across the street. The veteran of The Groundlings and “Saturday Night Live,” was in town to perform “Older and Wider,” a one-person show she developed last year performing at Second City Theater in Chicago. Her goal: step back into the limelight after a 10-year break to raise her daughter, Mulan. As she had done in her hit shows “God Said Ha!,” and “Letting Go of God,” Sweeney rummaged through her life—as a middle-aged mom, a woman just turning 60—for material. “I had all these funny stories about raising her,” she says.
As we sat in front of the fireplace at the Graduate Hotel, a winter storm brewed outside. Sweeney explained that her friend, actor Bob Odenkirk, encouraged her project, saying it would probably take her two years to get back into the acting game. “I would have this cute show, spend two years pounding the pavement and then afterward I would get some parts,” she says.
“But then the opposite happened,” she says. When she took her show to L.A.—where it received great reviews and the performances sold out—no producers attended. Sweeney would have been dismayed, but almost as soon as word was out that she had returned to L.A., the casting calls started coming in. She now has a regular part on “Shrill,” a Hulu series based on the life of former Stranger columnist Lindy West. She plays West’s sweet, thoughtful mother.
Meanwhile, on the new Showtime comedy series “Work in Progress,” she plays herself in a recurring role. In one episode, she offers a glimpse of her androgynous S.N.L. character “Pat.” In the show, co-written by and starring Abby McEnany, McEnany plays herself, a queer and gender-nonconforming Chicagoan. When she first encounters Sweeney in a bar, McEnany confronts her. She explains that when she was younger, people used Sweeney’s creation to mock her. “Your character, Pat, who no one could tell was a man or a woman, ruined my life,” she tells Sweeney.
In real life, Sweeney takes the criticism of “Pat” seriously. She didn’t create the character to make anyone feel bad, she says. When she developed “Pat” at The Groundlings in the late 1980s, she wanted to expose how uncomfortable people were with gender ambiguity. But it became a tool for demeaning people. In “Work in Progress,” Sweeney offers a heartfelt apology. “I feel terrible. I didn’t mean it to be mean. I think I was really naïve,” she says.
Most recently, Sweeney landed a part on “American Gods,” the Starz fantasy drama based on Neil Gaiman’s novel of the same name. One of the conceits of the show is that many of the characters are taken from mythology. Sweeney plays Hinzelmann, a North Germanic sprite, only now he’s in Wisconsin and he’s a woman, a sweet-faced Sweeney. When asked for details about her role, Sweeney demurs. “It’s a great character that I can’t really talk about,” she says. “I can say there is drama, violence and magic. I have a very specific look with glasses and wacky clothes. She’s good character, sweet and chatty, but with a real dark side to her. As an actor, I get to do all kinds of things I haven’t done before. It made my head explode with happiness.” After her visit to Seattle in February, Sweeney was due to return to Canada to film her last episode. “It’s a doozy,” she says.
* * *
Sweeney grew up in Spokane in the 1960s and ’70s, the oldest of five children in a tight-knit Catholic family. “In my mind, Spokane was a Norman Rockwell painting. The charm, the old-fashioned beautiful old buildings. It was more of a big town than a small city,” she recalls. And her family: “We did everything as a gang.”
How did she become funny? “Probably for f****d-up reasons,” she says. “There was a lot of alcoholism in our family.” Her brother younger brother, Bill (who died of addiction in 2012), was the bad boy. “I knew I had to be the face of dignity in the family and get positive outside attention. I figured out how to compensate by making people laugh,” she says. Her dad, a federal prosecutor, was funny too, but in a wry and understated way.
“I knew I had to be the face of dignity in the family and get positive outside attention. I figured out how to compensate by making people laugh.”
Julia Sweeney
She relishes the first laugh she ever got. “In second grade, we were talking in class with Sister Mary Kevin about a restaurant that was rumored to be using horse meat in its hamburgers. I said, ‘If you are eating a hamburger and a bugle blows and your burger jumps up and runs, you know it’s horse.’ I got a huge laugh. And I thought, oh my God, I just did a drug that was so powerful and pleasurable.”
She wanted more, so she started playing with voices and characters. She was voted funniest girl every year from second grade to eighth grade. As a teen, she threw herself into competitive debate. Her dad helped her find great monologues, and she frequently won. These were signs of her future, only she couldn’t recognize it. “It never occurred to me I could earn a living from telling funny stories,” she says.
She decided to attend the UW partly because if it was far from Spokane. Sweeney set herself on a path to study business even though “I wanted to major in history because I love history,” she says wistfully. “But my mom said, ‘What are you going to do, be a waitress and read history on your break?’” Still, Sweeney managed to sneak in enough history classes for a second degree (along with some film studies classes) on her way to an economics degree.
She relished her time in Richard Jameson’s class on the American Western and Kathleen Murphy’s class on women and the cinematic imagination. She thought they were both brilliant teachers. “Then later I learned they were married to each other! How amazing is that?” When she wasn’t on campus—she served a term as the ASUW vice president—she was at the Varsity Theatre, where she worked six days a week. “I lived on popcorn and studied and saw movies,” she says.
After college, her love of movies drew her to Los Angeles, where she decided to find a job as an accountant in the film industry. “I found this very safe way in,” she says. “I had never thought of being an actress.” She imagined, being in L.A., that everybody would be talking about movies day and night. “It turns out that my coworkers were just interested in doing accounting. After a couple of years, my boss said I needed to get an MBA or a law degree to move ahead. And I thought, `But I don’t like accounting,’” she says. She was 25 and she decided, finally, that she would become an actor. She started taking classes with The Groundlings improvisational comedy school and troupe, where she met future “Saturday Night Live” castmates Phil Hartman and Jon Lovitz. It took a few years before she was discovered by producer Lorne Michaels, and she joined “SNL” in 1990.
For her first two years in New York, she lived with her favorite UW professors, Jameson and Murphy, who had relocated for their work as film critics. Sweeney spent four seasons on “SNL.” She then returned to L.A. to work in movies, including “It’s Pat,” “Pulp Fiction” and “Honey I Blew Up the Kid.” She then shifted her focus to her family because her younger brother, Michael, was dying of cancer. Sweeney then received her own diagnosis of cervical cancer, which required surgery and chemotherapy. Those experiences, including that of moving Michael and her parents into her bungalow, culminated in “God Said Ha!” the first stage show she created out of her own experiences. The show became a movie—it received the Golden Space Needle for best film at the 1998 Seattle International Film Festival—and a best-selling book.
She continued to act in prime time with small parts on “Sex and the City,” “Frasier,” and “3rd Rock from the Sun.” And along the way, she developed other autobiographical monologues, the most recent being “Older and Wider.” This will be her last one-person show, she says. “I am at the end of it. It’s hard to do the shows and sell out,” she says. “It’s just a little better than break-even. Maybe $600 after the expenses.” She can still get her audience fix by slipping into friends’ shows in L.A. for her “15 minutes of fun,” she says. Her last monologue performance is destined for Spokane’s newly renovated Fox Theater. That show, originally scheduled for early April, was postponed because of Covid-19. She plans to film the final show and produce it for streaming on a digital channel.
“When you get to be 60, you get to thinking about the alternative lives you could have led,” she says. “I look at Seattle and think, why didn’t I just stay here? Maybe I would have become a history professor.”
Hannelore Sudermann is the managing editor of University of Washington Magazine.
University of Washington
Be boundlessConnect with us:
©2023 University of Washington | Seattle, WA
FAQs
Is Julia Sweeney married? ›
Who is Jody Sweeney's husband? ›Personal life
Sweeney is married to scientist Michael Blum. They live in Chicago with their daughter, whom they adopted from China.
She portrayed Pam in Brooklyn Nine-Nine. She was formerly a cast member of Saturday Night Live (SNL), from 1990 to 1994 with her most popular character being “Pat” while on the show.
How old is Julia Sweeney? › Who is Claire Sweeney partner? ›| Claire Sweeney | |
|---|---|
| Occupation(s) | Actress, dancer, singer and broadcaster |
| Years active | 1989–present |
| Partner(s) | Tony Hibbard (2001–2007) Daniel Reilly (2013–2015) |
| Children | 1 |
On July 8, 2000, Sweeney married David Sanov, after dating for nearly three years. The couple have two children: a son born on February 25, 2005, and a daughter born on January 12, 2009. The family currently lives in Los Angeles.
How many kids does Allison Sweeney have? ›Sweeney is married to her husband of over 20 years, David Sanov. They married in 2000 after dating for nearly three years. The couple has two children, a son and a daughter.
What age is Claire Sweeney? › Does Julia Sweeney live in Chicago? ›Author, actor and comedian Julia Sweeney, who lives in the Chicago suburbs, is launching a new stand-up residency at The Second City.
Is Julie Sweeney Roth remarried? ›
Julie has since remarried and lives in New Jersey. She also volunteered for a decade at the 9/11 Tribute Museum, a family-run center that highlights the stories of victims and survivors of the attacks. It has helped her process the grief and learned that life is precious.
How old is Sweeney Sweeney? › Is Holt from Brooklyn 99 autistic? ›While he's eccentric, highly intelligent, obsessively focused, and prone to special interest behavior, there are multitudes of instances that suggest he is not on the spectrum.
Why did Fox cut Brooklyn 99? ›"It really limited the opportunities to schedule Brooklyn. With Thursday Night Football, there were two fewer hours to program. We were trying to create a more cohesive program, and scheduling Brooklyn would prevent us from promoting something new. Ultimately we decided we just didn't have room for it."
Who is the Hispanic girl in Brooklyn 99? ›Stephanie Beatriz Bischoff Alvizuri (born February 10, 1981) is an American actress. She is known for playing Detective Rosa Diaz in the Fox/NBC comedy series Brooklyn Nine-Nine (2013–2021), and voicing protagonist Mirabel Madrigal in the Disney film Encanto.
Was Julia Sweeney on SNL? ›Years on SNL
Julia Anne Sweeney (born October 10, 1959) is an American actress, comedian, and author. She is known for her role as a cast member on Saturday Night Live and for her autobiographical solo shows. She played Mrs. Keeper in the animated film Stuart Little and voiced Brittany in Father of the Pride.
But the former Brookside actress has now revealed that she's rekindled the romance with her baby's dad Daniel Riley – and she has her 10-week-old son Jaxon to thank. Claire and Daniel had been trying for a baby for 2 years and suffered the heartbreak of 2 miscarriages before they called time on their relationship.
What is Claire Sweeney doing now? ›Brookside star Claire Sweeney has opened up about her new role on Coronation Street. Sweeney, who will make her Corrie debut in June, is expected to cause a stir in Weatherfield when she appears as Tyrone Dobbs' mother Cassie, who Tyrone has long thought was dead.
Has Claire Sweeney lost weight? ›
Former Brookside actress Claire Sweeney took to Instagram on Thursday to share that she'd lost six lbs in two days, but warned fans to be careful when it comes to weight loss. In a photo that showed the star had dropped from 12 stone six lbs to 11 stone eight lbs within two days, Claire wrote: "Ok so this is mental!!!
How much weight did Alison Sweeney gain? ›So when she gave birth to her second child, she felt the pressure -- from herself -- to quickly bounce back and shed the roughly 26 pounds she gained. But that was one temptation she refused to give in to. “The last thing a mother needs is more pressure,” Sweeney said. “Your body has been through so much.
How old is Autumn Reese? › Did Alison Sweeney have a baby? ›We wanted to take a moment to send Days of Our Lives fave Alison Sweeney's (Sami) daughter Megan a big birthday shoutout as she turns 14 years old today.
What is Alison Sweeney doing now? ›Days of Our Lives vet Alison Sweeney is at it again, off in Vancouver filming another Hallmark movie. However, it appears that this isn't just any movie but rather the latest installment of one of her mystery series.
How old is Alison Sweeney? › Where was Alison Sweeney born? › Did Claire Sweeney have IVF? ›Although there are reports that I had IVF, I didn't, I just conceived naturally.” While Claire now looks relaxed, understandably she confesses she found the first three months of her pregnancy difficult. “I was really scared and anxious that I might lose this baby.
What dress size is Claire Sweeney? ›She went from 11st 2lb to 10st (size 12-14 to a 10) after exercising three times a week.
Who is Claire Sweeney's mother? ›Where is Sydney Sweeney born? ›
Does Sydney Sweeney have a sibling? › Is Sydney Sweeney getting married? ›Sweeney and Davino have been "happily engaged" since 2022. At the time, a source told ET that the actress was already in the planning stages for her wedding.
What happened to Julie Sweeney? ›In the years since 9/11, Julie remarried and had two children. She currently works as a substitute teacher and volunteers at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, interacting with visitors from all over the world.
Did Sweeney love Mrs Lovett? ›In every version of the story in which she appears, Mrs. Lovett is the business partner and accomplice of barber/serial killer Sweeney Todd; in some versions, she is also his lover.
What does Sweeney mean? ›Irish and Scottish: shortened form of McSweeney from Gaelic Mac Suibhne 'son of Suibhne' a personal name meaning 'pleasant'.
Where is the Sweeney family from? ›One of the things I love most about it is that Jake Peralta, one of the central characters, has ADHD.
What is Raymond Holt's IQ? ›high IQ (not low IQ) 94.6.
Who is the smartest detective in Brooklyn 99? ›Amy and Holt are the two smartest members of the Nine-Nine, with some conversations and topics only being possible to be explored and experienced with their combined high level of intellect.
What was Brooklyn 99 Cancelled? ›
Brooklyn Nine-Nine ( a.k.a. B99) is an American police procedural comedy television series that aired on Fox, and later on NBC. The show aired from September 17, 2013, to September 16, 2021, for a total of eight seasons and 153 episodes.
Did Brooklyn 99 end or get Cancelled? › Will there be a Brooklyn 99 spin-off? ›Brooklyn 99 can still continue via a new spin-off that will follow a particular character — Captain Raymond Holt. A couple of years since Fox's original cancelation of the cop-centric sitcom, NBC also pulled the plug on the project, resulting in its official ending in 2021.
Is Jake Peralta hispanic? ›He is an Ashkenazi-Sephardic Jewish American New Yorker, raised by his mother after his dad walked out on them when Jake was only seven years old.
Who is Gina to Peralta? ›Gina was a childhood friend of Detective Jake Peralta and spent a lot of time over at his Nana's. She was name-checked in her kindergarten teacher's suicide note which she still likes to brag about.
Is Amy Santiago Hispanic? ›Biography. Amy comes from a Cuban-American family. She has seven brothers and at least one niece.
What is Alison Sweeney's husband do? › Who is Julia Sky husband? ›David Hyde Pierce, plays the other main character in the series, as Julia's supportive husband, Paul Child.
Is Alison Sweeney from Hallmark married? ›Alison Sweeney's Family Album: The Hallmark Channel Star's Sweetest Moments With Husband David Sanov and Their 2 Kids.
Does Allison Sweeney have children? ›Where does Ali Sweeney live? ›
On July 8, 2000, Sweeney married David Sanov, after dating for nearly three years. The couple have two children: a son born on February 25, 2005, and a daughter born on January 12, 2009. The family currently lives in Los Angeles.
Is Alison Sweeney still making Hallmark movies? ›Alison Sweeney, the executive producer and star of the “Hannah Swensen Mystery” films, confirmed another installment of the TV movie series for Hallmark Movies & Mysteries on Wednesday, two days before the premiere of the latest film “Carrot Cake Murder: A Hannah Swensen Mystery.”
Who runs Julia Child's estate? ›Since Child and her husband moved out, the three-bedroom, three-and-a-half-bath home has undergone a number of renovations before it was purchased by its current owner, Rory Veevers-Carter, in 2015.
Where is Julia Child married? ›While in Kandy, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) she met Paul Cushing Child, also an OSS employee, and the two were married on September 1, 1946, in Lumberville, Pennsylvania, later moving to Washington, D.C. Paul, a New Jersey native who had lived in Paris as an artist and poet, was known for his sophisticated palate, and ...
Is Julia still on Sky? ›Julia is on Sky Atlantic in the UK, HBO Max in the US and Foxtel in Australia.
Are any actors on Hallmark married to each other? ›Victor Webster and Shantel VanSanten
Ah, Hallmark. After dating for four years, Victor Webster and Shantel VanSanten got engaged in 2021 and were married in three -- yes, three -- separate ceremonies later that year.