It was not the usual interview at the LBJ library in Austin. Being questioned was not the Vice-President (one of those will be here in June) or a famous Admiral. The most recent reason for a packed house was the presence of a comedian and actor: two people everyone has seen on TV.
Alec Baldwin was joined by his comedian friend Darrell Hammond. Baldwin has hosted Saturday Night Live more times than anyone else (17). Hammond has been a regular on the show for 30 years. They were in conversation with Mark Updegrove, CEO of the LBJ Library.
I have to preface my report by saying that this was one of the most fractured/disjointed stage talks I have ever witnessed. Some stretches by the two guests resembled a stream of consciousness; even listening to it in realtime was often hard to follow, but putting it on the printed page, so to speak, defies logic. I’ll concentrate here on what they said about the presidents and other politicians.
BALDWIN’S FASCINATION WITH PRESIDENTS
On the subject of the Kennedy’s, Baldwin said that was invited to be with the family after the death of Robert Kennedy. His widow, Ethel, said “Would you like to come to Mass?”
“I said yes, and asked when the car was going to leave. ‘The priest comes to the house,’” intoned Ethel!
“The thing about Nixon was that he was just so fascinating,” said Baldwin. “A guy who did have absolutely great qualities. This smart guy that let himself be consumed by the negative – the dark side of the force, if you will.
“I was obsessed with the people who became the president, but after Nixon I lost interest. But in the modern era, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and I was friends with Robert Caro,” who is writing the definitive biography of Johnson. “What crystallised for them to become president? I never tired of it, it was my favourite subject.
“I met Bill Clinton in the Oval Office” said Baldwin. “He takes your personal space away from you. ‘I think you look terrific,’ he said to me. He loves to be Bill Clinton!”
Baldwin explained that “the presidency is like no other experience in human history. It changes you. Obama was not same after 8 years, Bush was not the same either. Only one person who has never changed is DT. He is consumed by hatred. When he maligned me, I just considered the source.” Since 2016, Baldwin has impersonated DT on Saturday Night Live. He won an Emmy for the role in 2017.
THE STATE OF COMEDY
Updegrove asked what SNL, a national institution, actually means. “It’s an event,” replied Baldwin. “Comedy is everywhere. Lorne Michaels said to me when he first started SNL in 1975 there were 14 comedy clubs in the whole country. Now there’s a couple thousand. There’s too much comedy; there’s so much its kind of a tsunami. But when it works, it serves a purpose: it’s like an event for people to be able to vent some of their feelings. Because there’s nothing they can do about what’s happening right now. What can you do? You can’t do anything.”
IMPERSONATING THE PRESIDENTS
Updegrove indicated that in addition to the comedy explosion, SNL is also a seedbed for impressions, “especially presidential impressions, exaggerated as they may be. When you formulate an impression, you can’t help but think about the impressions you do.”
Hammond responded, asserting that “these guys,’ meaning the presidents, “don’t talk like other people. These guys that end up being world leaders: they would fail oral interpretation class. Winston Churchill wouldn’t cut it.”
Baldwin chimed in, saying that “when you’re around people like that, if you don’t deliver that stentorian thing, you kind of lose the audience.”
“At least in DT’s case, and for other presidents too” said Hammond, “no one has the time to memorise all these facts that are coming at you. They make the conscious decision to make you feel, instead of think. And they come at you with that charisma!”
Hammond said the key for a comedian to properly imitate a president is to track their hand gestures. “Clinton had 43 hand gestures, Reagan only had 5 or 10, JFK had 5 or 10.”
Vice-presidents got their share of impressions on SNL too. “The first time we did Gore,” said Hammond, “I had been doing Gore for a year in the Village, and I thought it was a pretty decent Gore, but it was not getting any laughs. It wasn’t until that 2000 sketch that Jim Downey (SNL’s political writer) comes in and he does the impression like an overbearing schoolteacher!”
Hammond said that he had trouble imitating John Kerry, who ran for president in 2004. “I was being thrown off because he had derived his speech pattern from Pres. Kennedy. I got a copy of Kennedy’s inaugural address and I did it in a southern accent,” and that did the trick. Hammond was also noted for doing a great Ross Perot, the Texan who ran for president.
Photo by C. Cunningham: Updegrove, Hammond, Baldwin.
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