Julia Sweeney

JULIA SWEENEY

Date of Birth: October 10, 1961

How many people can boast that they've received an official complaint from Hillary Clinton? No matter the number, Julia Sweeney can count herself among them. Bill Clinton's first lady complained to NBC following Sweeney's impression of their daughter Chelsea on an episode of Saturday Night Live.

The daughter of actor Robert Sweeney, Julia began her career in entertainment in a peculiar fashion: as an accountant. She worked in the accounting department at Columbia Pictures in the mid-eighties after graduation. She then ignored that calling to join the improv troupe The Groundlings, who also count late night's Conan O'Brien and Friends' Lisa Kudrow as ex-members. It was during her stint in The Groundlings that Sweeney developed her most famous character, androgynous Pat. That weird creation got Sweeney a foot in the door at NBC and led to her being cast in Saturday Night Live. However, success has evaded Sweeney on the big screen and her first attempt, the It's Pat movie based on her character, was a resounding dud. At the time, Sweeney didn't really care what happened to the movie though. She'd just learned she had cervical cancer.

She survived the ordeal only to find her brother was diagnosed with cancer as well, terminal in his case, that same year. Her parents then came to live with her so all three could take care of her brother. She turned that experience into a play entitled God Said Ha! (1998), that also became a movie, executive produced by Quentin Tarantino, one of her friends. Tarantino later cast Julia in the role of Raquel in his feature film Pulp Fiction (1994), starring Uma Thurman, John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson.

Since 2002, the year she played a role in the feature film Clockstoppers, Julia has focused her career on the stage, appearing in a variety of productions. She also provides voices for a number of projects, including the animated film Monsters University (2016), and for TV, the series Teamo Supremo (2002), Family Guy (2000 - 2010) and The Good Family (2009).

In 2019, she appeared in several episodes of the Hulu series Shrill.

For a while she was married to fellow actor Stephen Dibert but they divorced in 1993. In 2008, she married Michael Blum. The couple adopted a girl in 2000.

Filmography:

Don't Come Knocking (2006)
Clockstoppers (2002)
Beethoven's 4th (2001) (V)
Beethoven's 3rd (2000) (V)
Whatever It Takes (2000)
Stuart Little (1999)
Thick as Thieves (1999)
Courting Courtney (1997)
National Lampoon's Vegas Vacation (1997)
Meet Wally Sparks (1997)
Stuart Saves His Family (1995)
Pulp Fiction (1994)
It's Pat (1994)
Coneheads (1993)
Honey I Blew Up the Kids (1992)
Gremlins 2 (1990)