Saturday Night Live’s James Austin Johnson gave the Tribeca Festival a taste, and analysis, of his celebrated stream-of consciousness Donald Trump impression. He often wings it.
“It wouldn’t feel like Trump if there wasn’t this queasy feeling in the audience of ‘what is he going to say?’ and so I have to improvise for the character to kind of come alive. So I’m throwing in stuff,” he said Saturday after a few presidential riffs that jumped from China to Japan to Korea to Carrie Underwood to Lady Gaga to Iran, delighting the audience after the world premiere of Josh Greenbaum’s new documentary, Playing POTUS.
The film explores how comedians parody leaders and help define them to the public, an important conversation currently amid presidential tirades against late night hosts, and after The Late Show With Stephen Colbert closed up shop last month. Asked outright during a Q&A if he was afraid, Johnson said. “I hope my name never comes out of his mouth.”
“One time he [Trump] started to talk about me,” Johnson said. “He was at a rally, he was talking about Alec. He was like ‘Alec Baldwin, he’s a sick puppy. There’s a new guy doing it now, but we don’t watch the show. They say he’s pretty good.’” But, the comedian added, “I’m doing a version of it that I feel is sustainable. Because I do think that there’s a little bit of a game of Operation that all of comedy is playing right now.”
Playing POTUS, based on Peter Funt’s book of the same name, features an assortment of SNL alumni and comedian including Johnson, Chevy Chase, Dana Carvey, Will Ferrell, Maya Rudolph, Keegan-Michael Key, Alec Baldwin, Kate McKinnon, Tina Fey and more who have played presidents and prominent political figures. Former SNL writers Robert Smigel and Jim Downey joined Johnson and the director for a conversation after the screening.
“These impressions have power,” Greenbaum said — increasingly so as people turn away from the news, “putting comedy and the work these people do in a more and more powerful and impactful position.” The doc noted that Winne The Pooh is banned in China after its president was once compared to the rotund bear of the classic children’s story. That started in 2013 as the leader was walking side by side with the taller, slimmer U.S. President Barack Obama.
“I just don’t want to ever go down that path,” he said. “And hopefully this small film will remind us that we are lucky and should fight to protect these voices.”
