Read This: SNL cast talks being a “war profiteer” from Donald Trump
There is no silver lining to a Trump presidency—it doesn’t make comedy better; it is just an ongoing tragedy that, if only by sheer dint of the fact that we have to continue living through it, we are forced to find the humor in. This need for humor has revitalized Saturday Night Live, which, by bringing in guest stars Alec Baldwin and Melissa McCarthy and riding our cultural terror, has seen the show’s best ratings in some 23 years.
The Hollywood Reporter has an illuminating new article featuring interviews with all of the show’s major cast members, producers, and many of its most prominent guests, forming something of an oral history of the show’s wildly successful past six months. It doubles as a trip through our cultural reactions to the Trump administration’s various embarrassments, aggressions, and controversies.
Among the many other interesting anecdotes is Baldwin digging in on his Trump impersonation, which he claims has even netted praise from a cabinet member (though he refuses to disclose which one). About his impersonation’s style, he says:
They give you all the resources you need to watch and look at Trump in different tableaux: Trump somewhat off the record, Trump caught by a camera, not just Trump making a speech. But I watch and watch and I still don’t know what I’m going to do. Then I get out and all I remember is, “Just try to make him unhappy.” There are many people who do Trump now, and they have different Trumps. They have kind of a “balls-of-his-feet-light Trump” or what I like to call “Gene Kelly Trump.” But my Trump is “Miserable Trump.” No matter what. He wins, he loses, he’s miserable.