JULIA SWEENEY STRUGGLED WITH INFAMOUS “SNL” CHARACTER PAT'S LEGACY BEFORE REALIZING 'IT WAS IMPORTANT' (EXCLUSIVE)
The former 'Saturday Night Live' cast member tells PEOPLE how she learned to embrace Pat — and how the character could one day return
Julia Sweeney has a complicated relationship with Pat, the Saturday Night Live character she famously portrayed.
At the 50th Anniversary: Saturday Night Live panel in celebration of The Groundlings improv theater on June 28, the comedian — who was a cast member on the popular NBC sketch show for four seasons from 1990 to 1994 — opened up to PEOPLE about playing Pat, a nonbinary role, on the popular NBC sketch show. The character's unspecified gender became the basis for jokes in many skits and drew some criticism from some including one of Sweeney’s friends,Transparent creator Joey Solloway.
“There were some people in particular, Jill Soloway — who actually is a friend and who's now Joey Soloway — saying that Pat was derogatory towards nonbinary people and that it was really an upsetting thing as a person of indeterminate gender herself or themselves to even see Pat,” Sweeney, 64, explained.
She added that Soloway’s criticism “just broke my heart, because I felt that I carefully wrote all the jokes to be about the people's uncomfortableness with Pat, not Pat being uncomfortable with Pat's self.”
Related: Colin Jost Reveals the Celebrity Guest That Is 'Especially Good' at Hosting Saturday Night Live
“To me it was an empowering nonbinary thing — and that it was perceived that way was very upsetting,” she continued.
But Pat’s journey may not be over yet. In June, Sweeney met with 10 transgender comedy writers to discuss how to potentially “reinvent” the character. These writers viewed Pat in a more positive light.
“A lot of the people who were there, well, all of them loved Pat,” she said. “They were little kids when they saw Pat and felt that was a transformative thing for them to see. … For me, that was so emotional. And when I left, I was really crying all the way home, because I felt like for the first time in 30 years, I felt proud of Pat.”
Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.
“Now I feel like, Oh, no. It was good and it was important, and now all these trans people that I met, this group of 10, all told me how important it was for me to have done that," she added. "So now I feel, okay, that was okay.”
Friday's SNL reunion panel is one of many events that will bring together comedy’s biggest giants and Groundlings alumni to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the improv theater.
For more People news, make sure to sign up for our newsletter!
Read the original article on People.
2024-07-02T00:03:54Z dg43tfdfdgfd