Original subtitles

When I first started doing uh Bill

Clinton,

I had to listen to a lot of his stuff

because there's a quality he has that's

so good.

My favorite thing to do starting very

early on was to do impressions

because I could make my mother laugh. So

if I did my Jimmy Kagny or my Jimmy

Stewart or my Jack Lemon, a little bit

later on, my Johnny Carson,

my mother was in peels of laughter. I

think that's literally where it started

for me was this this feeling that I got

of being able to just watch my mom burst

into tears of laughter.

And I don't think I necessarily knew

that I was identifying with um somebody

who I could sort of grab from. It's just

that I I learned early on the um

the joy in being able to learn how to do

someone's voice, the way someone talked.

You know, imitation is the sincerest

form of flattery. and and I would do

people that I admired.

Watch a lot, record a lot, listen to

yourself a lot, play it back a lot, then

play that person a lot. For me, it

starts with uh with definitely how it

sounds and and being able to try to

figure out how someone the rhythm of

somebody

and to some degree how they breathe

because everybody breathes slightly

differently, but also because it was how

I could hear it in my my own ear. It's

less important how someone else hears

it, much more important for the imitator

about how it how it sounds to you, to

your ear.

Carson is is way back is it's the

Midwest.

So there's a kind of at the back of the

throat. Uh the way they you know there's

most people back there talk way back in

their throat. And if you can hear that

I heard I heard laugh.

It's exactly what you want. Uh you it's

it's a different thing. Whereas Lemon,

who was from Boston,

he had a slight thing where, you know,

Jack would Jack Jack would he'd

interrupt himself, you know, when Jack

would that, you know, that you touch it.

Terrific. You know, there was a there's

a kind of more directness with a guy

like Jack. Yeah. It's the weird thing,

you know, I've seen a couple of people

who who do impressions of me on on

YouTube and it's very sort of funny to

watch, but you sort of go that's not

really you don't think that's really

you. And I don't know whether I mean I

look at someone like Pacino and I think

there's so much to imitate.

I look at myself and I don't I don't

think that there's that much to I don't

do that kind of so it's just sort of

interesting for me to to ever have

watched people who do do me. you know, a

guy like Pacino, you know, you have

early Pacino just like you have early

Brando. You know, you can do Brando, you

know, there's a lot of people that do

Brando when he was very young, but the

more sort of interesting Brando is the

later Brando,

you know.

So, I would simply say if if uh

you were wanting to do an impression

of Marlin

that

the first thing you have to do is first

of all not give a flying [ __ ] about

anything.

uh and then uh

be able to have that extraordinary uh

it's almost a lisp

uh that he had later

and you know one doesn't know what the

cause of that was

maybe maybe too much stuff in the cheeks

maybe you know uh a little drinky poo

you know yeah like you know it's like uh

uh Pacino Pacino

has a certain kind of I know gruffness

you know there's a certain quality where

the voice gets lower automatically you

start working on a different part of

your voice.

Oh, big man. You know, there's a there's

a you sit in a different place vocally.

And then if you start to find those

physical things that a guy like Pacino

does where it always seems to me like Al

Al appears to be the absent-minded actor

where he's forgotten where everything

is.

He's always he's always looking for

something. You know, there's just a kind

of where where did I where did I put

that? you know, there's just a a sense

that he's always searching for

something. Um, so sometimes it is that

it's that sort of locking into one idea,

one thing that that helps you launch

off.

It's once you sort of get the voice,

then the physical stuff can start to

happen. Then you begin to sort of figure

out, well, what can I do physically? And

sometimes you'll see um people who do

impressions um who do very high comedy

um you know Rich Little for example used

to do comedians and he used to do them

in such a way that you would recognize

them immediately. So they're almost

caricatures because they're it's it's

done stylized. It's done for immediate

effect. It's one of the reasons why

Johnny Carson didn't really ever like

that many people who did impressions of

him because he always thought they were

doing an exaggerated version of him.

It's very interesting watching him on

television and then going to the Tonight

Show, which I did a lot uh and either I

would stand in line or I would get

tickets through very surreptitious ways,

but one of those ways was to call the

Tonight Show as Johnny uh and get

tickets that way, which I was able to

succeed in doing a couple of times. Um

but to watch him live was very different

from watching him on television.

Um, can you guys, if I stand here, can

you guys see me?

Yeah, we can adjust. Let's just volume

with this camera. Yeah.

Okay, good.

So,

what I learned about Johnny, um,

when I watched him live at the Tonight

Show was, you know, when he's on the

Tonight Show, you sort of see him about

here doing the monologue, right?

But when I went to the Tonight Show and

I and I watched him live, I could see

his entire body. What you didn't notice

was that first of all, his posture was

very erect. It was up here. And there

was partly a reason for that. Now, it

just looked that way, but actually he

was

standing with one toe lifting his body

up.

And there was a couple of reasons why he

did this. First of all, this leg was

usually shaking. Johnny was quite

nervous whenever he came out, right? And

secondly, it gave him a swivel. It

allowed him to go, you know, over to Ed

or talk to Doc. And if a joke didn't

work, this was the main reason he did

this. He had somewhere to go.

And it's only when you see him live that

you would realize that there was a whole

body to that impression that I wasn't

doing until I suddenly saw it and was

able to actually add that to the

impression. So if if you if you're doing

Johnny, you're always in a position

where you're

sure. It's weird. There's nobody out

here. It's just lonely out here. Who

cares? All right. There we go.

It's the situation that's half as funny

as the impression. If the impression is

going well, then the situation can only

increase the laugh because it's it's

just an unusual you don't expect to see,

you know, that person, you know, on a

subway or that person going doortodoor

as a salesman for whatever it is. You

know, it's not I used to and I learned

this when I did standup comedy because I

would place famous people in odd

situations. You know, Jimmy Stewart at

the at the laundromat, you uh

it won't take my quarters. Uh the the

dryer, you know, and so it's just funny

putting someone like him in a situation

like that. So you take, you know, where

where would you like to see so and so?

and someone would say a bowling alley

and then suddenly, you know, you're

you're bowling with Jimmy Stewart. These

were things that I sort of learned how

to place the character I was doing, the

impression I was doing in any number of

situations. You're trying to do a real

genuine impression where you almost feel

like you become the person rather than

it being uh necessarily just high

comedy. That's I always try to get to a

place where I feel like I become the