Q&A Ellen Degeneres

By Rebecca Winters

Ellen DeGeneres has been cast as God in a remake of the 1977 George Burns film Oh, God! But the comic will stay down-to-earth for her talk show, resuming Sept. 6.

This isn't the first time the Lord has touched your career. Wasn't God the subject of your first comedy routine?

The first thing I ever wrote. My girlfriend at the time was killed in a car accident. She was 21. I was 19. I didn't understand why she was gone and my apartment was infested with fleas, why certain things are here and certain things are gone. I started writing what it would be like to be able to pick up the phone and call God. Six years later, I was on Johnny Carson, and I was the first woman on the show to be called over [to his couch], from that same routine.

What do you think God's house is like?

There's a coffee table with two magazines--TEEN PEOPLE and Guns & Ammo. And there are pictures of Jesus everywhere. A picture of Jesus on a pony. A picture of Jesus with a T shirt that says, MY PARENTS CREATED THE UNIVERSE, AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY T SHIRT.

Some people won't like a gay woman playing God.

When they made the original, people were upset George Burns was Jewish.

George Burns' God--funny or not funny?

To me it was just a very mild, harmless film. He didn't really say anything other than "Be nice to one another" and pointed out mistakes he made, like avocados, the seeds being too big. There's obviously gonna be things that I'm gonna comment on that are more current.

Like what?

Technology that's just gotten out of hand. I don't know that we need the automatic toilet flusher.