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Impersonating a celebrity, especially on a show as popular as Saturday Night Live, is always a tricky thing. While some famous faces take the parodies with good humor, there are plenty, however, who make it clear they’re not happy about being the butt of the joke. As you can imagine, it can be emotionally complicated trying to figure out how mean to be, and it can be especially complicated when you’re impersonating the President of The United States.
Just a handful of people in Saturday Night Live’s history understand that unique burden, and right now, that heaviness is weighing on James Austin Johnson’s shoulders. After Alec Baldwin was replaced following President Trump’s defeat in 2020, Johnson went in a very different direction with his take. His version is still biting but feels like more of a fully realized human than Baldwin’s more aggressively mean-spirited caricature. That was an intentional decision, and according to Johnson, it’s one he thinks is a lot more sustainable.
During a recent appearance at the Tribeca Film Festival, Johnson was asked if he’s afraid of President Trump. Busting out his impression, he talked about how the politician once referenced him at a rally during a larger rant about Alec Baldwin. After calling the former actor a “sick puppy,” he said he heard SNL has a new comedian doing the impression who is pretty good but that he doesn't watch the show.
Johnson then pivoted back to the original question and gave a really honest answer about where comedy is at right now and finding something that’s sustainable.
I have never been afraid of anything ever. I’m doing a version of it that I feel is sustainable. Because I do think that there is a little bit of a game of Operation that all of comedy is playing right now. And I just don’t think we’ve seen a president who is so willing to target private citizens and ruin their lives.
A lot of people have played Donald Trump at one point or another during the show’s long history, but there are three impressions that had real staying power and were done for extended periods of time. Darrell Hammond played Trump before he was a politician and mostly angled his take to be more of a goofy, over the top pop culture salesman. It was Trump as a larger than life character, and it was the one impression Trump himself really enjoyed. He’s talked publicly about how much he liked it.
Once Trump became a more serious political figure, the show rolled out a new take from Alec Baldwin. He played Trump as a snarling and almost inhuman figure. He contorted his body to be almost hunched and really exaggerated his vocal inflections. It was an impression clearly designed to be as vicious and biting as possible. Not surprisingly, Trump was very open about how much he hated his take and how terrible he thought it was.
Johnson’s version blends the two together in a more grounded way. Much of the material itself is still rife with social commentary and opinion, but when you watch Johnson, it feels 90 percent like the actual person we’re seeing in the White House. It does a better job capturing the President’s humor and some of the charisma that got him elected twice in the first place. The goal of the comedy seems to be more reliant on the sharpness of the writing and the accuracy of the impression, rather than the over-the-top nature.
Personally, I think Johnson’s version makes the impression better. It feels like it has less of an obvious agenda, which makes everyone, regardless of political leanings, more likely to pay attention and not write it off. That being said, it seems like based on his comments that some of that move to the middle may be a calculated choice to keep the show and himself from generating the amount of vitriol that Baldwin and the show received during his tenure.
You can watch Johnson’s answer below in a video from Entertainment Weekly that’s going around on social media…
SNL hasn’t made any official decisions for Season 52, but it’s widely expected that Johnson will be back to play the President. There was some initial skepticism when he took over the biggest role on the show, but within a few episodes, fans overwhelmingly got on board with what he’s doing. I can’t imagine the show wanting to go find someone else, and besides, it seems like Johnson is starting to find his footing with the rest of the show, as well. Besides he’s started appearing more in non-Trump sketches and has some nice upside, mostly as a straightman playing off some of his flashier costars.
