Sasheer Zamata Is Bringing Witchy Queer Magic to Agatha All Along

Kim Newmoney

Sasheer Zamata doesn’t think coming out has to be an earth-shattering moment, but she wants to do it anyway.

“I’m out in my life and I do keep my personal life kind of private, but I also don’t necessarily want my identity to be private,” the actress and comedian tells me over ginger turmeric tea at a café in Pasadena. “I guess I’m one of those late-in-life lesbians. I just feel very comfortable and confident in my life.”

Zamata has remained a vibrant screen presence after her four-season stint on Saturday Night Live, which came to an end in 2017, appearing on the TBS series The Last O.G., the Hulu original Woke, ABC’s Home Economics, and more. All the while, she has continued performing stand-up comedy, with her second special The First Woman premiering last year to positive reviews, and now streaming on Hulu. Zamata also hosts the beloved, long-running Best Friends podcast with her “soulmate” Nicole Byer. (“I feel very, very lucky that I have a person in my life who fully understands everything,” she tells me of her friendship with the actress and TV host.)

But starting on September 18, Zamata will take on perhaps her biggest role to date, appearing as witchy superhero Jennifer Kale opposite Kathryn Hahn in Marvel’s long-awaited WandaVision spinoff Agatha All Along. Zamata is the type of performer who can tackle anything, bringing warmth and authenticity to a wide range of roles. But one trend she has noticed since leaving SNL is how often she has been asked to play a lesbian.

“I kept getting cast as queer women,” she tells me, rattling off a long list. “I played a lesbian on Home Economics. I played a lesbian on Woke. I played a lesbian on Tuca & Bertie. A lesbian on Last O.G. I kept getting these roles. And this is before I myself was figuring out my identity. I was like, ’Whoa, what are these casting directors seeing that I’m not seeing?’”

I suggest, tongue firmly in cheek, that Hollywood made her gay.

“That’s what conservatives joke about all the time,” she laughs. “They’re like, ‘Oh my God, they’re turning everyone gay.’ And it happened.”

Zamata is among a wave of high-profile women in entertainment who have come out as queer since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. This year alone, One Tree Hill star Sophia Bush, comedian Amber Ruffin, country music star Maren Morris, and more have all made their own public announcements, coinciding with a landmark year for lesbian pop culture fueled by the rise of Chappell Roan. Zamata attributes some of her own recent awakening to going off birth control for the first time since age 16.

“It really did kind of change everything,” she shares. “I cut all my hair off. And I was always attracted to women, but I think [that] really boosted it.”

People close to her noticed subtle changes. “Even my friends and people around me were like, ‘Something is different about you. We can’t put our finger on it, but something’s happening.’”

Amid the wave of so-called “late-in-life” celebrity lesbians, some have fired off quick Instagram captions revealing their sexuality, while others have written out long heartfelt messages. Did Zamata ever wrestle, I wonder, with the choice of how to come out — or with whether she needed to publicly address this at all?

“No one asks straight people about their journey of discovery,” she aptly points out, “but I guess it felt like if I didn’t say anything, I’d be ignoring a part of me, and that doesn’t feel very good. But yeah, I’ve definitely had thoughts of, not necessarily keeping it a secret, but [that] there’s no need to say anything about it.”

Her stand-up comedy is what ultimately pushed her over an internal tipping point. As she started writing newer material about dating women, she realized that censoring herself to avoid coming out would be like “being silenced.” Keeping those internal shifts concealed no longer felt authentic. That said, Zamata points to Roan’s recent remarks on boundaries as a reference for how she hopes the public treats her sexuality going forward. She is happy to no longer be keeping a secret, but that doesn’t mean she’ll abandon her penchant for privacy.

“As far as what people deserve to know? Nothing. They don’t deserve anything,” she says. “I feel very fortunate so far. I have fans who are good about respecting my privacy, and I hope that continues. And I hope artists like Chappell Roan who are very clear about boundaries keep going.”

“I don’t want to be the representative of anything,” she adds. “I just got here. But I do want to be a part of the community.”

While Zamata’s role as Jennifer Kale on the much-anticipated Agatha All Along isn’t explicitly written in the series as queer, she has nonetheless found relatable themes that connect her own experience to the character she’s playing. “It’s nice to be able to portray a character who has been an outcast for a lot of her life, and to be in a show that’s exploring so many cool female themes and queer themes, it feels very appropriate,” she says.

In the WandaVision follow-up, Zamata plays a key member of a new coven led by Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) following the loss of her powers. An eclectic crew of witches played by Patti LuPone, Debra Jo Rupp, Ali Ahn, and Heartstopper’s Joe Locke all team up, each bringing their own unique kind of magic to the adventure. The role feels especially appropriate because of Zamata’s own embrace of witchy practices in real life. “I am trying to get more in tune with the moon,” she tells me, explaining how she uses a daily planner that uses the lunar body’s movements to help decide when to do everything from working out to cleaning your apartment. “I wish I was more organized with it, but it is cool to know I can also use the environment to help dictate what I’m doing in my daily life and not just rely on my brain.”

In fact, in The First Woman — which was filmed before Zamata was asked to audition for a role on Agatha All Along — she included multiple prominent jokes about witches. Perhaps there’s something to say here about the powers of manifestation. Zamata agrees. She remembers telling her reps, “I have to be seen for this. Because the idea of being in the MCU in a show about witches — this is the Venn diagram of me, this is everything I love.”

“After I got cast, I remember telling Jac Schaefer, the creator, ‘Did you know that you hired a witch? I manifested this,’” she says. “It really does feel meant to be.”

What Zamata couldn’t have foreseen, though, is that she would be asked to sing on the show in the presence of musical theater legend Patti LuPone. “No one told us there was going to be music when we got cast,” she tells me. “It was a surprise to all of us.”

Fortunately, she brought her own experience with church choir and high-school musicals to the project. “I think everyone was intimidated to sing in front of [Patti], but she was like, ‘Get it, we’re all doing great,’” Zamata remembers, calling her co-star “such a force of energy.”

In fact, LuPone sometimes played DJ on set with a portable speaker. Zamata recalls everyone being tired on a long night of shooting when LuPone started playing a Chuck Mangione song, sparking an impromptu dance party. “We started a conga line to camera, and then the cast was dancing, all the crew started dancing, and we held up production for 10 minutes,” she recalls. “But it was so fun just to get that energy back up and shake everything off. “

When asked about the last time she felt a moment of magic in real life, Zamata doesn’t hesitate. She recalls an encounter with a swarm of bees trying to return to an old hive that had been removed from her house. “I went outside and I was like, ‘I’m going to talk to the bees.’ So I went out there to a safe distance where they could see me, and I was like, ‘Thank you so much for being chill and patient, someone’s going to come tomorrow to remove you and take you to a better place where you can make a big hive and grow and expand.’” To her surprise, an hour later, the bees were gone. “I do think there’s power in words. Usually when I speak it out loud, something happens, and it does feel pretty magic."

Looking forward, Zamata is ready for the Marvel fandom to finally see Agatha, especially because the show features “so many different types of witches” of “different ages, different races, different backgrounds.”

“I think what this show is going to do is also open up the door to a whole new fan base of people who maybe didn’t see themselves before in the Marvel Universe… I hope people watch it and can see a little bit of themselves in it,” she says.

Coming out is always in style.

When it comes to her own career, one idea is currently taking shape in Zamata’s crystal ball: an action film. “Ryan Reynolds’ career is my ideal. I would love to continue to be a badass and learn fight choreography,” she says. She would even do her own stunts. “I would at least try. If it seems too dangerous, no, I would not. But if it’s something I am capable of doing, yeah, I would absolutely do it.”

But whatever she does next, she’s happy she can do it all as herself. “I’m so excited about all these shows that are exploring queerness and young people exploring their queerness and queerness being in the show and it’s not a big deal, and it’s not relegated to a special episode or something,” she says.

Zamata’s career has spanned quite the spectrum since her early days as a Disney park character. She once cried so much while wearing the Buzz Lightyear costume she was taken to see a medic. (“Everyone be nice to the people you see in costume,” she urges. “You don’t know if they’re sobbing in there.”) And now, in a full-circle Disney moment, she has landed a role in the MCU.

“It does feel like I am reaching another milestone,” she says. “It was my dream to be on SNL, and then I did it, and it was my dream to be in Marvel, and now I’m here, and I’m like, well, I’ve got to find more dreams now.”

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Originally Appeared on them.