“I don’t want to be representative of anything. I just got here. But I do want to be a part of the community”
BY YASMIN VINCE, IMAGE BY DISNEY+
Sasheer Zamata, formerly of Saturday Night Live and star in the MCU’s Agatha All Along, has revealed that she is a “late-in-life lesbian”.
The actor came out via an article with Them on 9 September, where she said that, while she keeps her personal life private, she didn’t necessarily want that to apply to her identity as well. “I guess I’m one of those late-in-life lesbians,” she said. “I just feel very comfortable and confident in my life.”
After concluding her four-season stint on SNL in 2017, Zamata consistently played queer women. Her credits as a lesbian character include Home Economics, Woke, Tuca & Bertie, The Last O.G. and more. She jokingly suggested Hollywood made her gay and asked herself: “What are these casting directors seeing that I’m not seeing?”
Though her character in Agatha All Along, Jennifer Kale, is not explicitly a lesbian, Zamata said the show is exploring “so many cool female themes and queer themes”. She even joked that due to her interest in witchcraft, the show is a perfect Venn diagram of her and everything she loves.
Amid the jokes, the actor spoke seriously about coming out publicly and why it was an important thing for her to do. To not come out would be to ignore a part of herself and that “doesn’t feel very good”. But, Zamata also wanted to make sure her privacy was still respected in the future. She praised Chappell Roan for being clear about her boundaries and agreed that fans do not “deserve” to know anything, regardless of what a celebrity chooses to share.
As for herself, Zamata doesn’t want to be a spokesperson for the queer community and doesn’t consider coming out to be a step in that direction. “I don’t want to be representative of anything. I just got here. But I do want to be a part of the community.”
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