Weird Trivia: Quentin Tarantino Did An Uncredited Rewrite On ‘It’s Pat’
And we thought the news that M. Night Shyamalan ghostwrote “She’s All That” was weird (even if it might not be true). This time around, the weird movie trivia of the day concerns Quentin Tarantino, and there’s no doubt it’s true since he confirms it himself.
Back in the ’90s, one of the weirder pop culture phenomenons was the popularity of Pat, an androgynous character created by Julia Sweeney for “Saturday Night Live,” where the entire premise of the joke was that no one was ever sure if he/she/it was a man or woman. Somehow, the sketch became popular enough that Lorne Michaels figured a movie vehicle would be a good idea. It wasn’t. The movie was terrible and bombed horribly, but not before Tarantino himself worked on the script. Here’s what he told Playboy in 1994 (hat tip to Filmdrunk):
Playboy: You were hired to do a rewrite of It’s Pat. As one now familar with the perspiring androgyne from Saturday Night Live, is Pat a he or a she?
Tarantino: The androgyny aspect is only a part of Pat’s appeal. What I love about the character is that Pat is so f*cking obnoxious. To tell the truth, I don’t know what Pat is. But I know what I want Pat to be: I want Pat to be a girl. There was only one sketch that Julia Sweeney, the actress who plays Pat did on Saturday Night Live that gave a clue to what Pat is. It was the sketch that Pat did with Harvey Keitel. They’re stranded on a deserted island and they have sex – and Harvey still doesn’t know what Pat is. And the thing is, they kissed in it. At one point they were thinking of taking the kiss out of the sketch. But Harvey, being Harvey, demanded they keep it in, that there’d be no integrity without the kiss. So that was the first time we’d seen Pat in an intimate situation – a smooch. There is a certain way that you hold your head, the way you come in for a kiss. And sitting there, watching it, I thought that Pat didn’t kiss like a guy. Pat kissed like a girl.
Uh, sure whatever, Tarantino. Of course, both Sweeney and Keitel appeared together in “Pulp Fiction” — she’s Raquel, the woman hanging off the arm of The Wolf — so we suppose that relationship ran deep. Or at least as far as Pat. (Actually, Sweeney and QT dated for a little while). Anyway, here’s the trailer for “It’s Pat” in case you have no idea.
