‘Ha!’s’ Sweeney Is Laughing Again

When Julia Sweeney’s life was thrown into turmoil five years ago, it seemed as if a supreme being was playing a joke at her expense. So she laughed right back. The result was “God Said, ‘Ha!’,” a comic and poignant stage show that put a rosy spin on a gloomy period when both she and her brother Mike were diagnosed with cancer, and her parents invaded her cozy Larchmont-area bungalow for nine months to monitor them.

But after a year of performing the one-woman show during successful runs in San Francisco, New York and Los Angeles in 1996, it all stopped being so funny. “I was really at the end of my rope in terms of talking and thinking about it. I hated the show at that point,” Sweeney says. “That year wasn’t really about centering yourself. It was like being in this frenzy.”

After more than a two-year break, and with the release of the movie version of the show today, Sweeney’s view has softened. She now has a deeper appreciation for the work she created and the impact of that year on her life.

“Sometimes people say, ‘That terrible year, I hope it never happens to you again,’ ” Sweeney says. “But that’s really a double-edged sword. Yeah, it was terrible, and of course I make it terrible when I tell the story. But I would do anything to have one day of that back with Mike here.”

The future had looked so promising for Sweeney five years ago. After an amicable divorce, she had eagerly moved into the Larchmont home, preparing to celebrate her new single life by hosting fabulous dinner parties. On the horizon was a career achievement: a starring role in “It’s Pat: The Movie,” a feature film based on the chubby, gender-challenged character she had made popular while a cast member on “Saturday Night Live” from 1990 to 1994.

Well, the movie was an embarrassing flop. Then her home life was disrupted by the arrival of her ailing brother, diagnosed with advanced lymphoma, and then her parents. As her brother lay dying in a hospital, Sweeney was diagnosed with cervical cancer. Three days after Mike died, she was on the operating table having her cervix, uterus and Fallopian tubes removed. Not exactly funny stuff.

But with Sweeney’s training as a theatrical sketch artist and stand-up comic, she was able to weave together an entertaining series of monologues about these events that evolved into the stage show, a book and now a feature film, which has friend Quentin Tarantino as its executive producer.

In a way, Sweeney finally has the life now she thought she was going to have five years ago--happily single and anticipating the release of a film in which she stars. Her house is quieter these days, and also on the dark side. There’s brilliant afternoon sunshine following a recent rainstorm, but you’d never know it standing in her living room, dimmed by heavy drapes and darkly painted walls.

“Too much light is uninteresting. I like dark,” Sweeney says. As if by way of explanation, she adds, “I’m from Washington.”

Everyone’s gone now except her four cats. A romance that began when she was caring for her brother, and one she talks about in the movie, recently ended. Her parents have moved back to Spokane, Wash., where they’re coping with serious health problems of their own. In a reversal of sorts, Sweeney spent a few weeks back home with her parents last year when her father was very sick.

During a recent interview, Sweeney answers questions by telling long stories punctuated by an infectious laugh. She says that listening to her father spin yarns when she was younger taught her much about how to tell a good story.

She prepares for a photo shoot by dashing on lipstick and haphazardly fixing her hair, yet she poses confidently, like someone comfortable enough with her looks to be known as the face behind the unappealing Pat.

Tarantino’s Support ‘Changed My Life’

She credits Tarantino with giving her a similar faith in her creative ability. The two met while she was working on “Saturday Night Live” and bonded instantly, sharing a love of movies.

When they planned the film version of “God Said, ‘Ha!’,” Sweeney and Tarantino watched versions of one-person film performances, including Gilda Radner, Richard Pryor and Spalding Gray. They ultimately decided on renting a Culver City studio and creating a makeshift theater with a three-camera setup and a live audience. Sweeney performed the show twice in one day there for the filming. It was Tarantino’s idea that Sweeney direct.

“He’s been an angel because he has so much confidence in me. It’s changed my life,” Sweeney says. She says he’s helped her block out voices in her head that shout out doubts about her ability.

They filmed the movie more than two years ago. But Sweeney was so tired of the project then that they didn’t begin editing until last year. The film version is the ultimate refinement of the project, which began five years ago when Sweeney escaped her crowded house and health problems by performing weekly 15-minute stand-up routines at the Uncabaret at LunaPark in West Hollywood.

“It was as if I had a standing date with the same friends every Sunday night in a bar, and I would tell them about my terrible week,” Sweeney says. The stage show evolved from those monologues.

With such personal and occasionally unflattering material as the central focus for the show’s biting humor, Sweeney wondered how her family, especially her parents, would respond. In the end, their appreciation for a well-told story outweighed any concern for a loss of privacy.

“There wasn’t a moment where I was embarrassed or felt that anyone was intruding on my life,” says her brother Jim, a council member’s aide in West Hollywood, who saw his sister’s stage show in Los Angeles. “I would have tears coming down my face, and a moment later I would be laughing so hard I was holding a gut. I was exhausted after it.”

Completing the film may bring the “God Said, ‘Ha!’ ” period of her career to a close. Looking back on the run, she’s willing to admit now that some of it may have been therapeutic, a way of coming to grips with a horrible situation. So many things were happening at once, she says, that some of it didn’t sink in until later.

As an example, she says that the hardest part about finding out about her own cancer was having to tell her parents. “I didn’t want my parents to have to go through this again. My trauma at the time was really worrying about their feelings,” Sweeney says. “I didn’t really deal with it myself until about a year and a half later.”

Performer Now Craves ‘Quiet Life’ of a Writer

Her own prognosis for recovery is excellent, and she’s been keeping busy. She’s still performing, appearing in the upcoming movie “Thick as Thieves,” playing Rebecca De Mornay’s pregnant lesbian lover, and also landing the role as the voice of Wanda on “Baby Blues,” an animated comedy set to debut in the fall on WB.

But after performing so often with “God Said, ‘Ha!’,” she’s come to a realization about her career.

“I keep thinking that I’m more of a writer. I really want this quiet life,” Sweeney says.

She’s been writing of late, updating a script for “The Trouble With Angels” for Columbia Pictures, a project that has yet to be blessed with a green light. And she’s writing a film version of a stage play she wrote and performed at the Groundlings Theater in 1992 called “Mea’s Big Apology.” It’s about an insecure woman who apologizes compulsively.

“I tried to get Mea on ‘Saturday Night Live’ so many times. She’s a thousand times funnier and more interesting than Pat,” Sweeney says.

She hopes to direct the script as a low-budget movie. Yes, she’s making plans again, hoping that somewhere a higher power isn’t working up a low-rumbled chuckle.

*

“Yeah, it was terrible, and of course I make it terrible when I tell the story. But I would do anything to have one day of that back with Mike here.”

JULIA SWEENEY, creator of “God Said, ‘Ha!’,” about a time when she and her brother were diagnosed with cancer