So, Julia, you’ve made a “feel good” cancer movie …

[Laughs] I know. It’s so hard to convey. I went on “Roseanne” yesterday and she hadn’t seen the movie, of course. She didn’t even know it was a movie. It was a little embarrassing. She thought it was still a stage show. Or on “Regis and Kathie Lee” it was the same thing: They want to be very serious about cancer and be very sad and empathize with how horrible things have turned out in your life. And I’m like, “This is so not helping me.” If I really felt that way about myself I wouldn’t be out here talking to the world about it.

One of the things no one tells you before you get cancer is that it is funny. I went through treatment for breast cancer two years ago, and so much of the experience just felt patently absurd.

People say, “How could you find humor in this?” Well, how could you not? You’re in such weird situations all the time, it’s like you’ve gone to Mars.

Was it scary, though, to start making it funny, to make it from life into a routine?

It seemed really organic because I was performing on Sunday nights at this place called “UnCabaret” at Luna Park. It’s like a cross between self-help and stand-up comedy. It has to be true stories, there can’t be punch lines, it has to be the first time you’ve told it, it can’t be part of your routine. I’d never been a stand-up, but I got involved with this group, and it seemed really natural to me. It was like I was talking to my friends and I had the floor for 15 minutes every Sunday. So that’s how it evolved.

It’s a very different thing than what you previously did. On “Saturday Night Live,” you were a character in a sketch. You were wearing a giant amount of padding …

Me in particular, yes. And I was kind of a little bit of a snob about being an actress that wasn’t selling her personality. Like, “I’m an actress, and I play characters. I’m not Suzanne Sommers, whose going to tell everybody about myself.” That’s the part I had to get over the most. But now I don’t know why I had such a big hang-up about it.

Is there a character of “Julia” now, though?

The way I relate to that idea is when I was on Broadway and I’d done the show for a year and I was really, really sick of it. I felt like I had to impersonate myself in order to get through the show. And it was almost like I had to impersonate myself as a younger person, because by then it had been two and a half years and I had different feelings about stuff and different attitudes. And some of the things I said in the show were much more flip than I felt about them later.

Like what?

Like about not having had kids. Although, I still partially feel that way — that hasn’t been enormously traumatic to me. If I were writing that now, I’d be more upset on a deeper level about it. But I still had to do the show where I had to talk like that, so in a way I was doing the character of Julia Sweeney. But it was me, a couple years younger.

The real question is how did your mother feel about the show. You kind of make fun of her a lot. In the end, you say how much closer you are to your parents, but still …

Well, I didn’t tell them when I was doing it at first. I’d just tell them I was meeting some friends at a club on Sunday night. I didn’t say, “And while I’m there I’m going to get onstage and make fun of how you get on elevators.” And it was true, because everyone at that club was my friend, and half the audience were friends. If it wasn’t for that environment I never would have done it. It was like I was telling at a dinner party how much my mother drove me crazy.

So, then when it became a show, I thought, “Maybe this will just be a little thing.” Of course, I pushed the limits as far as I could of not telling them. Because I wanted it to be critically successful before they knew about it. Because what could be worse than making fun of your parents and having it be a bomb?

So, you told them you were going to be on Broadway, but not why?

[Laughs] No, I told them when I was going to San Francisco. I told them that I was doing a show, and it’s sort of about Mike, but I just was really vague about it. Then, apparently, people from Spokane have moved to San Francisco. And they sent my parents the reviews and they were like, “WHAT???” And they flew there and I almost had an ulcer. I was so overwhelmed. Even when I was at the Groundlings [an improv theater and troupe], I would do sketches of my mother and I would pull the sketches when they came to the show. It wasn’t worth it. But finally there was a show where it was worth it, because I didn’t want to stop doing it.

They were actually much better sports than I thought they’d be. In a way I saw them have real, true, unconditional love. Because they really just wanted me to do well. And they loved to hear the stories about Mike and remember Mike.

Is it weird to have total strangers know these intimate things about your life?

Some things, maybe. I’m embarrassed about the Karl part of it. [Sweeney sleeps with her brand new boyfriend.] Even though I knew it was a good enough story to put in there, but I feel like such a slut, you know? That embarrasses me that people know I would do that. But, on the other hand, I feel like, “Oh, so what.”

The one part I do like, well I don’t like talking about it, but I always try to make a point of talking about the hysterectomy because I just feel like people should be more open about that kind of stuff. Because there’s a lot of women who’ve had that. Not that I’m trying to be the poster girl for it, because I’m definitely not. But even in the show, I thought, “Good, somebody’s at least going to talk about it!”

Well, yes, because we’ve been talking a lot about cancer, but the movie isn’t just about cancer: It’s about family, and it’s about growing up and it’s also about a woman trying to find her way in the world where you’re in your mid-30s and you’re divorced and you have no kids and you’re infertile and you’re living alone and you’re … happy! It’s that last little bit that’s the twist.

There was a New York Times article that came out about me yesterday and in the interview he said, “The things in your house, do they have memories for you? Is that painful or is that good?” And I said, “It’s good. I can think of Mike sitting on the sofa, or Mike in the Jacuzzi, because when he lost so much body weight he was cold all the time so he was in there all the time. I like being in a place that has lots of memories in it.” So you know how the article ends? “She doesn’t mind the memories, it makes her feel less alone.” [She bursts out laughing] I never said one thing about feeling alone while I was living here alone! It’s like, “I don’t think you understand how much I love this! This is not bad! It’s good!”

I started joking with my friend Wendy that the idea that women are really sad to be alone is put out by women who don’t want too many other women to do it because then there’d be no more procreation. Because if women were really honest about how much they like to be alone no one would ever couple up with anyone! It’s like a secret we’re keeping. But we know the truth: We know it’s the best!

Do you ever worry about becoming the cancer queen?

A little bit. Part of me thinks, I don’t want to be a person that the first thing they think of is cancer. Now, fortunately I was Pat before I had cancer. It’s not like I came from complete obscurity and got cancer. I was this really weird character on this show and then I got cancer.

I was trying to think of how to relate this to Pat but I couldn’t.

[Laughs] There’s no way. I told you I did “Roseanne” yesterday. And she said, “How would Pat react to your cancer?” On the show! What is that supposed to mean? Are you trying to get me to say something funny Pat would say about me having cancer? How fucking weird is that? Like Pat would say, [switches to Pat's voice], “I don’t know if it’s cancer of the cervix or the testicles. Heh-heh-heh.”

I thought a lot about the film in terms of humor and women. On “Saturday Night Live” it’s always so hard for the women to break out. Pat aside, women don’t get the movie deals, and the cult status.

I always feel reluctant to talk about it, because the only way I can is for me to sound resentful and I don’t — well, I do feel partly resentful. But I wouldn’t change anything. It’s not like I’m just having a pity party about it, and I feel really happy with what I’ve done since I left. But, God damn. Sometimes I think, if I could go back to those days when Chris Farley and me and Adam Sandler and David Spade all were starting at the same time together and say, “Look around you. See these guys? In about five, six years, they’re going to be making millions” — I mean if they’re not dead — “millions and millions of dollars. And you’re going to work on quality things. Make some. Be fine. But the guys who think the funniest thing in the world is to make a homophobic joke and then to slide their pants down a little bit? The ones that you had to get up and leave the room not because you were offended but because you were bored? Those guys are going to make millions and millions of dollars. Arrgh!”

Do you think it’s something about the nature of the way audiences respond to women in comedy?

I don’t know. ‘Cause I kept thinking, I just believed I would change all that. Not that I think “Pat” was the greatest movie, but to me “Pat” was just as funny as “Waterboy” is. And I don’t know if that’s a case where it’s because I’m a woman — I don’t know. I had this idea that I would show that you could do just as well. And now I think maybe I just don’t have what it takes. Which is possible. Or maybe I don’t have the energy or drive that it takes, which I know is true. Because I just have other things that are more …

But also, I think it has to do with power. Because being really funny is really powerful. And I think that in general, people feel more comfortable with a guy being really funny. It’s not like you see movies or screenplays where the way the screenwriter lets you know about the person falling in love with the other person is that the girl is so funny, knowingly funny — not a character, not Darryl Hannah with glasses on playing the cello — but truly funny. Witty. Then the guy’s falling in love with her because of it. You never see that. Yet, the way that all the guys convey how sexy they are is because they’re funny, and then some beautiful girl goes, “Oh, you’re so funny, therefore you’re sexy.”

Did you have role models of funny women?

I love Lily Tomlin. I love her career, that she’s worked with these great directors, like Altman, and had these great parts, but still can do characters.

But now I’m thinking about Albert Brooks, because I’m writing a screenplay based on a play that I did, and I think I might be able to get financing to direct it, and I’d star in it, too. And at first I was really nervous about doing both, but then I thought, “I love Albert Brooks. Why isn’t there a female Albert Brooks?” And that just fueled me, and I thought, “I’m going to try to do that.” I don’t know if I can, but I’m going to try it.

So your health seems good now — and it sounds like you still make plans.

Oh, I do. So much. In fact, it’s compulsive. But at least now I know I don’t even expect 90 percent of them to turn out. You have to enjoy the making of the plans, and then just laugh when they don’t come true.

Along comes “Rushmore,” and, well, I don’t know what the hell it is exactly, except that it’s a work of loopy, original comic genius. Its setting is more or less contemporary, but it has the studied, almost diffident look of an early-’60s film about prep-school rebellion, and the hep-cat soundtrack to match (ranging from the Who and the Kinks to Paul Desmond and Zoot Sims). If this is possible, “Rushmore” is an understated paean to excessive passion, populated by an immensely enjoyable ensemble cast. Like any comedy that rises above the level of cheap ridicule, this story of an impossible boy’s improbable high-school career has a core of sadness, even tragedy. But out of their central character’s perhaps diagnosable dementia, director Wes Anderson and co-writer Owen Wilson (also the creators of the agreeable “Bottle Rocket”) have constructed a sweet-tempered parable about how human beings tend to make the best of things, despite all the lies and petty cruelties they inflict on each other.

Maybe if you turned the Coen brothers or the Farrelly brothers (of “Dumb and Dumber” and “There’s Something About Mary”) loose in this “Dead Poets Society” setting — and what could be more worthy of derision? — you’d wind up somewhere on the same comic continent as “Rushmore.” But Anderson and Wilson don’t want to grind you up in the wood chipper or shove your head in the toilet bowl; their brand of deadpan has a delicacy and humanity that’s all their own. For one thing, they get probably the finest screen performance of Bill Murray’s surprisingly varied career as Herman Blume, a hapless, despair-ridden industrial tycoon. Herman may be a second cousin to Murray’s familiar lounge-lizard sleazoid, but the actor never allows any of his trademark self-mocking knowingness to leak out. Oozing misery from every pore through his bad and expensive suits into the leather upholstery of his Rolls, Herman drinks and smokes incessantly and can’t stand his wife or his thuggish twin sons. Early in the film he does a grotesque cannonball into his algae-green, leaf-clogged swimming pool and the camera lingers on him while he stays underwater as long as possible, clearly wondering why he should come up at all.

But Herman’s misanthropic address to the student body at Rushmore, the fancy Houston private school he attended years ago, draws the attention of 15-year-old Max Fischer, Rushmore’s current Wunderkind. Played with absolute and almost eerie conviction by remarkable young actor Jason Schwartzman, Max looks exactly like the Jewish bookworm geek who’s certain to be the butt of every evil prank pulled at a place like Rushmore. But Max’s great genius is his steadfast refusal to be a victim. He’s determined, first of all, to be a glorious success. When Miss Cross (Olivia Williams), the lovely, oval-faced first-grade teacher at Rushmore, tells him she went to Harvard, the smitten Max replies blandly that Harvard is his safety school, in case he doesn’t get into Oxford or the Sorbonne. And when fate, not long after Max’s meeting with Miss Cross, pushes him firmly into loser-nutcase territory, he’s determined to be a glorious loser-nutcase.

Max isn’t always likable — Schwartzman has the courage to make his manias often exasperating and sometimes unpleasant — but his boundless ambition is tough to resist. He’s a scholarship student who got into Rushmore because he wrote a one-act play about Watergate — in second grade. Early in the film, he’s producing his adaptation of “Serpico,” complete with a toy subway train that rattles around the set; later, we’re treated to a Tarantino-esque crime drama and, at the warmhearted conclusion, a high-explosive Vietnam yarn that resembles “Full Metal Jacket.” In fact, Max’s entire academic career is a no less ludicrous fiction. He’s publisher of the Rushmore Yankee, captain of the debate team, president of the French club and involved in every other extracurricular activity from beekeeping to flying Piper Cubs to J.V. decathlon, but is on the verge of flunking out of school. He tells everyone his dad is a neurosurgeon (he’s a barber) and, fatefully, claims that Mrs. Calloway, mother of a younger boy who idolizes Max, gave him a hand job.

To tell you more would almost be unfair: Let’s mention that Max decides to pursue Miss Cross based mostly on a banal quotation from Jacques Cousteau, that he spends more than $8 million of Herman’s money on efforts to win her heart and that when his |ber-Walter Mitty scheming only serves to bring Herman and Miss Cross together, he knows what role to play next — that of a vengeance-crazed stalker. As this peculiar triangle turns sour, Herman continues to deteriorate, mixing drinks in a Diet Coke can in his vest pocket and lighting his next cigarette while still smoking the previous one, all without Murray cracking a smile. When Max — expelled from Rushmore, rejected by Miss Cross and a failure as a maniac — finally embraces existential defeat, we can feel confident that his dad (Seymour Cassel), his former sidekick Dirk (Mason Gamble), the spunky public-school girl with a crush on him (Sara Tanaka), Rushmore’s Scottish bully (Stephen McCole) and the rest of the appealing cast will conspire to restore his boundless confidence.

You could argue, I guess, that the only things “Rushmore” has on its mind are hackneyed — growing up is tough, and those of us who live too much in our own heads ultimately have to come to grips with the outside world. But comedy is largely about the journey, not the destination, and few contemporary comedies provide as weird and as generous a trip as this one. Max’s hilariously skewed imitations of adult behavior (“I understand,” he shrugs when Miss Cross tries to convince him his pursuit of her is inappropriate, “you’re not attracted to me. C’est la vie!”) remind us how much of our lives we spend performing roles that don’t suit us, that make us feel ridiculous. In laughing at Max, we’re laughing at our own vanity and pretensions, in their way as outlandish as his. Comedy can have no higher calling than that.

Which reminds me of a stand-up bit Jon Stewart used to do about a Canadian woman who asked him to come clean with what Americans really think of Canada. “We don’t,” he replied. Stewart is one American comedian who understands that a juicier question than “Why are Canadians so funny?” is its corollary, “Why is making fun of Canada so much fun?” As host of “The Daily Show” on Comedy Central, Stewart recently introduced a segment on a Canadian who chews on a pig’s spleen to predict the weather by noting that Canadian culture’s gift to the world is “I don’t know, Loverboy and … stuff.”

A high comedian birth rate, however, is Canada’s one claim to cultural dominance here in “the South,” and thus, the world. The panel at the 92nd Street Y convened to discuss the mystery of why such a kind, bland country (so modest it didn’t even get around to having its own flag until 1965) would nurture so many funny men and women. Because what requires more cruel honesty, more self-absorption, more guts and glory than making a living by making other people laugh? Yet Canada is the homeland of panelists Martin Short, Eugene Levy and “Saturday Night Live” producer Lorne Michaels. Not to mention oddball American favorites like Jim Carrey, Mike Myers, Catherine O’Hara and all the Kids in the Hall (Dave Foley et al.).

(Confidential to Canadian readers: Please note that the word “American” will be employed herein as an adjective deriving from America, as in United States of. No offense, eh? Why, some of my best friends are Canadians …)

The evening at the Y was giddy and spontaneous — and glamorous, what with the presence of that hilarious former PBS newsman (and Canadian) Robert MacNeil in the audience. Though the panelists never quite directly answered the question of why Canadians are funny, one came away feeling that, yes, Canadians sure are funny. Over and over, their wisecracks poked at their homeland’s wimpy rep. Short recalled his excitement as a child, running downstairs to tell his parents that ABC anchormen Huntley and Brinkley had mentioned Canada in one of their evening newscasts. When Short reflected on the humility of growing up saluting Britain’s Union Jack, Eugene Levy retorted that he was just “so damn proud to be part of the Commonwealth.” Michaels deadpanned, “Benedict Arnold was one of ours.”
So what are these barbs telling us? That Canada is a New World weakling still sucking the monarchy’s teat? That Canadianness is impossible to define precisely because it only exists in opposition to American flash, American ambition, American independence, American glitz?

Pretty much.

Thus, the central concern of Canadian humor, I would argue, is self-deprecation. And not just exhibiting modesty, but playing with it, flaunting it, questioning its value, stomping it out. Think of the mantra of Mike Myers’ thinly veiled Canadian routine “Wayne’s World.” Whenever Wayne and Garth would encounter their heroes, such as Aerosmith, they’d plunge to the floor slavelike, fan their arms and whimper, “We’re not worthy!” Conversely, Carrey’s essential schtick is an over-the-top play for attention — his contortions, his drool, his constant facial freakouts all rely on the un-Canadian habit of invading others’ space. And Scott Thompson (the most fabulous Canadian) has played both sides, as Hank’s submissive, sycophantic assistant on “The Larry Sanders Show” as well as the gay Quebecois barfly narcissus with the perfect feet, Buddy Cole, on “The Kids in the Hall.” But the master of twisting and turning modesty in on itself is Martin Short.

Is there a more charming man in North America than Martin Short? A man more huggable, more adorable, more undeniably cute? Who cares if he’s always in lame movies? Martin Short isn’t about acting. Martin Short is about life, about joy, about cheek-pinching glee.

When the four panelists entered the stage at the 92nd Street Y, Fox, Michaels and Levy calmly walked out and took their seats. Short, on the other hand, pranced out and spread his arms, unabashedly begging for love. Which he got, though he could have gotten more — cash, kisses, the firstborn of every man and woman in the room. (The best place to love Short right now is on Broadway in Neil Simon’s musical “Little Me.” Playing eight characters, his virtuoso hamming is the play’s only virtue.) At the Y, Short batted back and forth between extreme self-confidence and delightful self-defeat, often in the same breath. When Michaels, coveting Short’s Order of Canada pin, asked him how he received their country’s highest civilian honor, Short looked down his nose at his former “SNL” boss and snootily whiffed, “A little thing called ‘Three Amigos.’”

While Short’s American amigos such as Steve Martin betray a barely contained inner bitterness — see Martin’s wildly believable meanie in last year’s “The Spanish Prisoner” — Short makes self-loathing enchanting. He was, in the panel, constantly shocking. He would make some mild-mannered cute quip like the one about Huntley and Brinkley, only to switch gears with the occasional strong-willed reply: When Levy went on and on interminably about doughnuts, how doughnuts mean Canada and Canada means doughnuts, Short cut him down, scolding, “It would be a shame if the only thing we came up with was that.”

Canadian comics carry within them the whiff of the exotic precisely because their very profession flies in the face of the national code. Like American communists and Jamaican bobsledders, Canadian comics seem caught between two worlds, both from their country and defiant of it. Lorne Michaels, who has had more influence on American television comedy than anyone in the last quarter-century, suavely summed up the northern condition. “In a country where civility and moderation are celebrated,” he said, “show business seemed like showing off.” He asserted, for example, that a Canadian would never have made a film called “It’s a Wonderful Life” because “that would be bragging.” He envisioned the Canadian version would have been titled “It’s an All Right Life.”

So it’s only a movie, and a Bruce Willis movie at that — “Die Hard 3.”
But even so, even on film, even with Junior Mints melted all over your hands, that
sentence — black words on a white board — might be the most alarming
sentence in the English language. Can you think of words more ugly? More jarring?
More packed with history and guilt and rage? Just to type those words …

I’d forgotten that scene, forgotten what that moment felt like — until
I heard Chris Rock’s new “comedy” album “Roll With the New” (Dreamworks). “Who’s more racist?” Rock asks a mostly black Washington, D.C., audience. “Black people or white
people?” His answer: “Black people. Because we hate black people, too.
Everything white people don’t like about black people, black people really don’t like about black people.” He says there’s a “civil war” being waged: “There’s black people,
and there’s niggas. And niggas have got to go.” Seeing the words written
out is nauseating. But hearing them out loud is 10 times worse. The spoken word, especially
when it’s cloaked in Rock’s take-no-prisoners yell-speak, is so much more
potent than mere typography. Hearing anyone, even a black man, utter the
words, “I hate niggas” (and I’m using Rock’s spelling here) makes me cringe.

Is this comedy? I find myself chortling, but at the same time I question
whether I should be. Rock defines “niggas” as “ign’ant-ass motherfuckers,”
thieves who shoot up movie screens and who steer clear of books the way
Superman does Kryptonite. Over and over, he interrupts the flow of his rant with “I’m
tired, tired, tired of this shit. Tired, tired, tired.” He spits into his microphone with a percussive force, a real violence. Of course, he’s just joking around — or is he?

What Rock’s doing — dissecting race — isn’t new. The best comedians are
always more social critics than clowns, and Rock’s most talented
colleagues play with identity, too: Margaret Cho cracks up about her Korean
mother, Jon Stewart plays up his Jewishness, Janeane Garofalo takes on the
beauty biz. But that trio possesses a kind of sweet confusion that Rock
lacks. When Garafolo jokes about her “stalwart” upper arms, or Stewart cracks
wise about staying away from Christmas trees, they’re sympathetic — they suck
you in. But Rock’s act bubbles under with rage. His message is one of
estrangement, and it goes with the territory: to be the daughter of Asian
immigrants or a German Jew or a white woman — these roles are not without
symbolism. But to be black and in America and, more importantly, to
talk about being black in America is to take on this country’s
original sin. Rock’s saving grace is that, like all intelligent Americans,
he holds up ambition as a paradigm. But his outrage is fueled by a lack of it:
His problem with “niggas” is that he sees them as “low-expectation-having
motherfuckers.”

One of the structural problems with “Roll With the New” is the
occasional staged commentary between bits, in which Rock apes audience
members making fun of his act. This self-sabotage isn’t funny — isn’t
anything — except perhaps an unfortunate side effect of working on “Saturday
Night Live,” where bad ideas are routinely run into the ground.
After “Niggas vs. Black People,” for example, he constructs a montage of
after-the-show fan reactions to the bit. Everyone likes it: the “niggas” themselves, who
call it “dope”; the black man who says “you don’t know how many times I’ve
said that myself” and thinks “I HATE NIGGAS” would look great on the back
of a T-shirt; the oversexed Latina who wonders where he’s staying.
Since it comes across, even in audio, that Rock recognizes his audience as largely non-white, being a white person listening to this makes me feel as if I’m eavesdropping. This hunch comes crashing in on me as an obviously white voice, a man’s voice, says to Rock “I hate niggas, too” — and suddenly the only sound on the record is Rock’s fist flying (because everyone knows that the first and only rule of discussing identity is that you can make fun of your own, but
everyone else should just shut up already).

I can’t decide if Rock is brave or masochistic, but his point of view
doesn’t leave much room for affection. By beating up his admittedly doofy
white admirer, he effectively silences “white” commentary about his act.
But pointedly condemning black culture in front of black audiences isn’t likely to
turn him into Mr. Popularity there either. When he introduces himself to
the Washington audience, he calls the town “Home of the Million Man March.”
This is met by cheers and applause. But immediately (he’s been onstage for
roughly four seconds), he goes in for the kill. “Had all the positive black
leaders there. Farrakhan. Jesse. Marion Barry.” This is followed by several
minutes of castigation, by what-were-you-thinking diatribes aimed
specifically at D.C.’s black voters. “Marion Barry at the Million Man
March. You know what that means? That means that even in our finest hour,
we had a crackhead onstage!”

“Roll With the New” is a pessimistic document, a cynical attack on the
idea of community. Black/white unity is so removed a concept that it’s mostly
ignored, black/black unity is destroyed and male/female understanding is
obliterated (“I’m not saying O.J. should have killed her,” Rock quips in one
particularly offensive segment. “I’m just saying I understand.”
Women here are either money-grubbing divorcies or ball-busting wives or
tempting whores who fuck great but can’t cook. If this is comedy in Rock’s
world, then the tragedy must be unbearable. Listening to this record is
like being tickled for an hour — you may be laughing, but it’s not because you’re enjoying yourself.