Did you ever think Alec Baldwin’s impression of Donald Trump was any good? A lot of people did, back when he debuted it on Saturday Night Live in October 2016. “Uncanny.” “A technical marvel.” Etc. People were really excited, in those few remaining days before the era of President Trump. It was probably just the novelty of seeing an Oscar-nominated actor impersonating somebody who’s so widely hated on the left, but they all really overrated Baldwin’s skills. The wig and ill-fitting suit do most of the work. The rest is just squinting and pursing his lips. Nobody on TV does a worse Trump impression. It’s a shame that Lorne Michaels screwed over Darrell Hammond, who had been at SNL longer than anybody and whose Trump impression is much, much better. It was a cynical ratings ploy, and it worked.
And ever since, Baldwin has whined and complained about having to play Trump. Poor guy! But you won’t have him to kick around much longer, according to him. Mike Miller, Entertainment Weekly:
Alec Baldwin, who hates playing President Trump on Saturday Night Live so much he once wished a meteor would crash into 30 Rock to end his misery, says he will only be doing the role a “few” more times.
On a special Sunday edition of The Tonight Show, Baldwin told host Jimmy Fallon that while he’s wanted to hang up the blond wig and orange makeup for some time, the sketch comedy show’s creator Lorne Michaels convinced him to stick it out a little longer…
“[Lorne] gets me on the phone the Friday before the show, the day before the show, and he’s like… ‘I don’t think you understand how important this is…’”
“So [Lorne] said to me, ‘You should come and do it, your audience demands it’ or something like that,” Baldwin recalled. “So I came, and I did it. And I’m going to do it a few times.”
Right, right. Baldwin’s been singing this song ever since Trump won. Again and again, he insists he’s done playing Trump, and again and again, he’s not quite done. If NBC wants to keep paying him to do something that makes him so miserable, it seems like a suitable punishment.
Besides, putting him in a TV studio gets him off the street, where he does much more harm to the community.
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