Darrell Hammond: Who is the man Donald Trump says is better at doing an impression of him than 'Alex’ Baldwin?
The Saturday Night Live cast member portrayed Trump on the show for over a decade
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Your support makes all the difference.Donald Trump started his morning with a tweet so furious, so aggressive that he had no time to spell correctly; taking aim at Alec Baldwin, who is currently so well known for impersonating Trump on Saturday Night Live.
"Alex Baldwin, whose dieing mediocre career was saved by his impersonation of me on SNL, now says playing DJT was agony for him," he wrote. "Alex, it was also agony for those who were forced to watch. You were terrible. Bring back Darrell Hammond, much funnier and a far greater talent!"
The post was a reference to an interview with The Hollywood Reporter, in which Baldwin said he may no longer be able to appear on SNL with the impression as "every time I do it now, it's like agony. Agony. I can't."
The tweet was later deleted and reposted with spelling errors fixed. Yet, the surprise compliment to Darrell Hammond remained: a former Saturday Night Live cast member who has a long, long history of impersonating Trump on the show.
Appearing on SNL between 1995 and 2009, Hammond holds the second-longest tenure on the show behind Kenan Thompson, impersonating more than 107 celebrities, with Bill Clinton and Trump amongst his most popular.
He'd also impersonate the show's announcer Don Pardo when he was unavailable, as his impersonation was spot-on, and took over the role permanently when Pardo passed away in 2014.
As Trump announced his candidacy in 2015, Hammond returned to the show to reprise his impression, after Taran Killam's three-appearance attempt failed to ignite audiences, even moving to New York in anticipation as the election edged ever closer.
However, in September of 2016, Hammond was informed that SNL head Lorne Michaels had decided to go with Alec Baldwin instead, with The Washington Post stating he was keen to capture the idea of the "new" Trump.
“I needed another force, on an acting level, to have the power that Trump was embodying then,” Michaels said of the decision. “The Darrell Trump... it wasn’t the Trump that had gotten darker. It was the Trump from The Apprentice.”
Sadly, Hammond was so devastated by the sudden loss of work that he was forced to move back to Los Angeles, hoping to escape the ever-constant reminders of Baldwin's Trump and the gig he'd lost out on.
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