September 9, 2024 • 44 mins
Amy & T.J. sit down with the "SNL" legend about his traumatic mental health journey and how his mother and Amy Poehler have played an instrumental role in his career.
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Hey there, folks, want you to know I just made
an ass out of myself right before we started recording
this podcast, because an absolute legend of TV and comedy.
You believe what I asked him. I tried to explain
to him how to give us a mic check, and
I feel like an absolute moron. Welcome to this episode
of Amy and TJ. Rose.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
That was I thought it was the other thing you
did before when he caught us getting ready to get
ready and you turned it on like Daryl Hammond.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
He thought I was faking it. I wasn't faking I'm excited.
Who can't be excited to talk to Daryl Hammond? Now,
you gotta be kidding. If you go through and ask
anybody of a certain age, at least your favorite SNL
characters of all time or cast members, you cannot go
too far without his name coming up. Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
No. And the likeness he could have of your favorite
or least favorite politician. He nailed it in a way
that most people could not even dream of. And so yes,
if you closed your eyes, it was as if you
were hearing Bill Clinton. It was as if you were
hearing Ted Copple. That was one of my favorite ones
was Sean Connery. Oh, Sean Connery and Jeffardy because you know,
(01:21):
I'm a huge double O seven fan, and Sean Connery
is not.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
There's nothing he does in those movies that make you
feel like he's a dweep, that he's a moron, right,
He's always in charge, he gets The ladies said, why
why did I just go into an impression just then?
But he give that was bold, okay.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
And maybe maybe not smart, but we're so excited and
I did.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I made an ass out of myself because I was
that excited to have him here. So can you please
pick it up from here so I can make a
fool O.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Darryl Hammond is on the podcast today, and yes, you
can tell we are very excited. I actually was listening
to Cray this morning and was blown away by the
full story. I mean, we've you know, I know you
have been very vocal about your We always love to
make fun of people who call their lives.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Journeys, but truly you have been on one and we
all are on.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
One, and so you've been very vulnerable and very open
over the last decade or so talking about getting to
where you are today. So my first question is for you,
how are you today, Darryl Hammond? How you doing?
Speaker 3 (02:18):
I mean, I'm pretty good. I have to work it,
be healthy. I have to do cognitive therapy exercises. I
go to therapy, I go to twelve Step meetings, do
volunteer work. I do lots, and I do a lot
of yoga and a lot of meditation. So after all
that stuff I'm doing, okay.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Just okay, all that then, just okay.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
I'm telling you, I don't know the days of joy
jumps and you know, jumping up in the air and
clicking your heels together and shouting eureka, maybe behind it.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Wait, but you had those days?
Speaker 3 (02:58):
I did? I did? You know? Back when I was
in SNL, it was a real up and down thing
for me because most of the time I left that
show thinking that that I'm going to say fifty percent
of the time when I left that show, I thought
I had disgraced to myself. You know, someone sent me
a picture recently of me a read through with Tracy Morgan,
(03:20):
and the memories sort of came flooding back. How dissatisfied
it was with what it was I was doing in it.
I think because of the degree of difficulty. I mean,
you go to see a Vegas tribute app someone doing
an impression. It's brilliant and we love them, but they've
worked years on it. Now try doing it on Wednesday
(03:45):
before Saturday. Never done this before, never done this one before.
And you think you're gonna have forty eight hours before Saturday,
you're not. You might have five or six because there's
a whole bunch of other things you got to do.
So taking that out there, there are times where my
nerve would get so nerves would get so bad. Will
(04:06):
I'd say, why am I doing this? Damn? And I
know why I'm doing it because I'm addicted to it.
I'm a junkie for the high wire, right or I
wasn't you were?
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Would you say? You talk about all the work you've
you've done and the therapy and are you at the
healthiest you've ever been in your life right now?
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Oddly enough, so it may be so. I mean, last
week I was in a two weeks agousin Spokane. There
was a club that I wanted to play and I
did five one hour sets and I have to say
I was pleased. And you tried doing a one hour set.
(04:51):
It's not just the physicality of walking around. It's you
got to be on point for an out, do you
know what I mean? And this as went well, So
I worked really hard at it. But I don't know
if it's the healthiest I've ever been. There's probably a
time when I was, you know, when I was when
I was a teenager, I was a pretty strong kid,
(05:11):
a good baseball player, but out of my mum. So
this is the whole I got the whole package here.
Now I can't do as many chut ups as I
used to, but you.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Know, yeah, physicality is one thing, but mental health mentally mentally,
are you are you the strongest you've been? I mean,
you put in so much work, You've put so much
out there. You've you've you've You've gone from being institutionalized
to being on I think at one time thirteen different
medications and all on a path to try and find
(05:46):
the whys and then figure out the how tos. So
where are you on your mental health right now? Would
you say you're the healthiest mentally that you've been?
Speaker 3 (05:56):
I think so absolutely. I mean you were talking about
for most of my life, certainly the times that I
described in the play crame it just wasn't a way
to self suit. You know. You would drink and that
didn't really do it, you know, and you could smoke
weed and that didn't really quite do it. You know,
I needed help. I needed a doctor with doctor K
(06:19):
in this play, who could come in and break inside
my head without injuring me and find out what was
going on in there. You know, trauma therapy is kind
of in a semptancy, and you know, he could just
as easy have killed mhm. You know people that trauma
doctors that don't know what to do when they get
(06:41):
inside there can really guide that person off off the path.
And you know, it said, I don't know what it's
like today, but back then, you know it was said,
you know, in order to save your life, sometimes have
to risk it, you know. And I don't know. I
ended up with this guy who's one hundred years ahead
of his times. I'm I have stathesia, I color code
(07:05):
all my characters, and he used that to break into
my head and figure out what was going on in there.
He used colors. I mean, talk about a freak shot, right,
I mean, that's freaky, you know what I mean? So
I people have said this is the King's speech meets
one flow of the cucus nests at SNL. Oh, that's
(07:29):
pretty close.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
That's close. How many times, Daryl, can you list or
maybe have a number. How many times will you misdiagnosed?
How many things that they going to doctors and talking
to folks that they list all these things they thought
were wrong with you. How long of a list was that.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Well, let's let me get boring here for a second,
because in the play we say thirty nine, and that's
pretty accurate because each time you go to a treatment
center you have three Okay, so three. I had been
to six treatment centers or something like that. That's at
least eighteen. But the figure we use is thirty nine,
(08:06):
and that's just about right. I mean, people who had
the faintest idea what was wrong with me, you know,
could not figure it out. And here we meet this guy,
doctor K who said, you're this way because of something
that happened to you. Well, that was the Hall Elijah
chorus moment of my life because no one knew what
(08:27):
the hell was wrong with me. And I was like young,
you know, I had been in SNL for a while.
It was in my forties. I've been waiting for that
kind of my whole life. Something happened and then you know,
of course you got to be a genius like this
guy and break into this person's brain and pull out
(08:48):
what's in there, you know, And he did that. I
don't know how much of the Cray you've listened to,
but he did that with a series of dramatic exercise.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Yeah. I mean, it's remarkable to hear the process and
what you went through. I was also surprised to learn.
I didn't realize this. You were thirty nine before you
first even auditioned for SNL.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Well, I auditioned in my late twenties and early thirties
and was turned down twice, and then I couldn't get
another audition until I was thirty nine. Way too old
for the show by then. But I had started practicing
for SNL when I was twenty seven years old, so
that's twelve year period. And I had this whole thing
(09:31):
that I would do where I'd try to make one
improvement per week, you know, and those sort of things
snowball and add up and you become this exponentially better
player than you were, you know. I mean I would
work on vowel sounds. I would work on centery, you
know it, where's the voices at the head, mouthed, chest, stomach.
(09:54):
I would work on all of those sounds and practice them.
And by the time I was thirty nine, I walked in.
It was the perfect time because Phil Hartman had just
retired and he was the older SNL cast, right, and
he played clip and they need someone to play clip.
So based on that they saw me. Marcy Klein saw
(10:19):
me at Caroline's and brought me into Laura Michaels based
just because she saw me do Clinton at Carolines and
it was good enough to bring me in, And her
hope was that I had additional impression. I ended up
doing probably I don't know. I want to say twenty
and three auditions. Well, you know how.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Much of that for you to hear that you had
a you practiced for twelve years for an audition at
SNL sounds wild Like people that are familiar with you,
we look at you and say, obviously he was he
has this talent, but we don't understand the work that
put in that you put into it. How much do
you think you were just born with something and had
(11:02):
a natural ability or talent or how much of it
was you worked your ass off and practiced for years
to get in certain places.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
I wouldn't dare compare myself to Steph Curry in any way,
but here it comes no, no, no, no, I didn't
mean that. But what I meant was his prep is stagnant.
Other players ain't doing that. That'sure. I mean, you just
gotta say. I mean, I don't know what the percentage is.
(11:36):
I had some ability. My mother could talk like other people.
She talked like the people in the neighborhood. She talked
like the coaches and did the teachers at school. And
I inherit some of that from her, you know, and
then later on, I mean I knew from a pretty
early age that's what I liked, do you know. I mean,
(12:00):
it's a weird, nerdy thing to do in the Deep South,
or the slightest wrinkle of individualism can get you branded.
You know.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
That is so interesting because it's so changed now with
kids today. I think it's almost flipped, you know, you
almost strive to be an individual or to be something
different or to not fit in, like that's the cool
thing to do now. But yes, we all remember it
was quite the opposite coming up. We both went to
school down south as well, so we totally get what
you're saying. How do you take a talent like that?
(12:34):
You said you got addicted to it. It was the
reaction that you got from being great at it.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Well, listen, you know, if you're from the age of
like seven until the age of thirty nine, if you're
social ail at ease and you can pop out a
puorky big impression and now you're non ill at ease,
you've got to get hooked though. Yeah. You know, if
you know you can use that nothing thing else works,
(13:01):
you know you're gonna stick with it a little bit,
you know, And you know down there, I just was
a kid that just didn't fit in necessarily later on
when I played baseball as a teenager, but in the beginning,
when I was really young, for instance, when I tried
(13:21):
to play football, I remember the coach took me aside
one day and said, you know this, He said, there
seemed to be some kind of suitable war going on
and he and I said, what he said, They're seeing
to be some kind of suitable war going on. And
(13:41):
I was like, what was that mean, coach? And he
looks at me and says something about you just getting right.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
That's what they used to say to us in the
sound of the kid was a little different. You just
ain't right. Oh he just a little crazy. So I'm
wrong with him. And that was it. We're not going
to a doctor, We're not getting diagnosed. Somebody right with him?
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's he's touched. He's touched, he's touched.
My father used to say, my name's Max Hammon, was
myself Caroyland. He's extra.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Just warning everyone you get came with the warning label
was porky pig. Your first solid impression, would you say?
Speaker 3 (14:35):
I think the first one was Popeye scat singing. You
can imagine being a child with nothing to do but
pretend everything that's going on around you is not going
on around you. And my one way of doing that
was the way he would scats sing on the way
to olive oil. You know. That was I was seven
(14:57):
eight years old, doing a vowel consonant substitute. You know,
I'm writing all that down. I wrote every single one
of those silks, you know. Yeah, So that was the
first one, and then porcupaid was the next one. Of
the vowel consonant substitutions AB, you know, we'll be, we'll be,
(15:21):
you know. And then it became doing the coach at school,
doing some I never really did celebrities back then, but
I would do the coach and the teachers and stuff
like that. It's easy to get addicted.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Do you remember your first celebrity one that you kind
of nailed and that you got comfortable with and really
good at.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
Oh boy, no, I I don't. I never really thought
they were. I didn't really think they were.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
That good, you know. And maybe that's because I knew
all the nuts and bolts behind it and everything that
I had to go through to get it. You know.
I did Jesse Jackson at the Apollo Theater, only white
(16:18):
person in the theater, and they had said that was
such a horrible crowd. If they don't like you, they'll
turn on you, and they really will, let you know.
And I went out there and I said to myself,
I have studied him for five years. I know him.
I don't insult him, and I know him and that's
(16:40):
my and that's what I'm taking out. And they can see,
oh wait, he's not around. This is a serious kid
like And also because you know, the thing is really
very complimentary. I talked about how powerful he was personally,
does he ever have actual conversation? So I just did
(17:01):
Jesse Jackson having casual conversation, and that resonates with everyone
because it compliments the person before, before the fact, you know,
which is one reason h there there. There came a
time in history when that approach to giving politicians the
(17:22):
benefit of the doubt like that, you know, just didn't
work anymore. It just didn't play well anymore. You know.
I got my style from Richard Pryor. Richard Pryor would
compliment a person beforehand, insaulted it. It's I mean, look,
he's a genius, and I knew I'd never be as
good as Richard Pryor, but boy, I want ahead in
(17:45):
that direction, you see what I mean. That's where I'm
trying to I'm trying to get there, you.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Know, And yeah, it does because think about it, like
you were friendly with Bill Clinton. You we're friendly, well,
at least Dick Cheney wanted to hear you do, Dick Cheney.
So regardless of where you fell politically, they appreciated what
you did and how you portrayed them, even if it
was for comedic relief, and that speaks volumes to exactly
(18:15):
what you just pointed to.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
But is that right there? You're you can make you
can make the audience laugh, but you're not making fun
of the person you're impersonating. Is that you're doing an impersonation,
but you're not necessarily trying to take a dig at
all of these folks.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Well, I'm trying to do. I'm trying to get both
sides of the aisle to laugh. So what's the angle?
You know, you don't want to get too deeply personal,
you know with Shaney, and we don't want to go
in certain areas where people are going to take sides.
So I just came up with a wise, cracking, tough guy,
you know, and with Clinton charming row they were willing
(18:52):
to admit to that. Everyone, Yeah, we can play. We
can work with that. Both sides of the outcome work
with that. And you know with Trump, you know, the
the just bullhorned salesman touting his own his own narrative
(19:15):
and selling it like it ain't never been sold. But
you know, because you know people want to make fun
of him all that, but you the guy can.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Sell, oh god.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
No question. But he's thinking about thinking about I remember,
you know, years ago, when I was still doing Trump
on S and L, I went to Politicoon and Pasadena,
and you know, I said to some people out there,
I mean, there were the biggest journalists in the world
out there, and I remember saying to that, you know,
you should you shouldn't think that because you can get
a laugh about Trump's hair every time you go to
(19:50):
a cocktail park, that this is a guy to not
take serious. I mean, I said, in his office, and
trust me, that dude can look through I mean, he
can look right in there and see what's going on. Otherwise,
you know, how would he know how to take out
nineteen seas Republican candidates by finding it, by branding each
(20:13):
one of them in a way that just got them
a little off balance. Little Marco Rubio, low energy cheb,
those things, they were just a little off their game
when he would just swoop in and sell that giant
version of his narrative and sell it and then it's
(20:35):
open injure them, cripple them. They're not getting out their
best message. You put out your best message to the debates.
That's the way I stuck. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Yes, it totally does. What did Trump ever tell you
what he thought of your impersonation of him?
Speaker 3 (20:53):
He's tweeted about me twice while while president. All right,
so he seems he likes it. Okay, but I mean
with me, he seems to like it. But again I'm
giving him the benefit of the doubt. You know, I'm
saying up front. You know, he's figured out that it's
more important to make people feel than to make them think.
(21:15):
You don't want them thinking too much. Man, They can
feel feel something, and what matter? What is this making sense?
Speaker 1 (21:25):
It makes We're laughing because it all makes perfect sense
to us because we I think to your point early on,
you talking about Trump and we're not trying to get
into a political discussion, but you are. You make such
a good point about how we view our politicians, meaning
we didn't take a lot of people didn't take him
(21:45):
seriously the first time around. It was joke, joke, joke,
and this is not serious. And next thing you know, oh,
he's president. So do you find over the past? I
guess since twenty sixteen it would have been how have
you seen us or have we changed changed how we
view a Donald Trump? Or do you see us just
doing the same thing as always, And he's doing the
(22:06):
same thing as always, which is able to counter that,
and it might propel him back to the White House.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
But he isn't doing the same thing as always. He
has very I don't know, in a bizarre way. He
has hopscotched his way through the corridors of power and
up the wrongs of the ladder of political success to
the point where there's dopey God. Has the Supreme Court
(22:33):
doing his bidding?
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Yeah, I mean it's it's.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Giving him immunity already, they're doing Supreme courts doing that
stuff him again. Take him seriously, man, I mean, he's
on he's he's telling you what he's gonna do, and we.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
For some reason, some people don't want to listen.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
I mean, I don't want to be boring about this,
but I mean he's a fascinating dude.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Yeah, I'm sure you like the rest of us. I mean, well,
I should ask you, with as much as you've had
to study these politicians when you are doing impersonations of them,
did you watch the last debate? And I noticed that
you've got a show right on the same date, September
tenth in la As the next debate between Kamala Harris
(23:24):
and Donald Trump. I believe you go on at seven
thirty Pacific time, right when the debate ends.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Do you still watch these debates?
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Do you still.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Observe it?
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Study? I'm going to watch this one. And yeah, I watched.
I watched the Trump Byen debate. But he did the
same thing in that bit. He realized because he is
a canny, wary, streaked mentality. God, he understood that. All
(23:57):
he had to do was I don't know what you're doing.
I don't know what you're talking and I don't think
you know what you're talking about. That's all I had
to saidee and Biden came undone. He didn't want to
be seen as piling on and and and he didn't
want to be seeing his elder abuse and pilot on
the old guy because the man was a pair. And
now he was suspended. Yeah, by that one line. So
(24:22):
he's done this every time he's ever done a debate.
I mean remember when he did told her old company's
gonna put her.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
In jail yep, and then became the mantra.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Yeah, I mean he understood that in her entire lifetime,
no one has ever walked up to her and spoke
to her like that and just got her a little
off her game, and then he settled it. I hope
this is this is all nerd talk, so I hope
it's not too boring.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Oh no, I'm actually I was interested to see if
you're gonna, like, I'm imagining you backstage prepping for your
show and watching the debate and then will you Are
you somebody who can watch the debate between those two
and then bring it into the the live audience just
moments later?
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Are you?
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Is that even a plan or a thought?
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Yeah, I mean that that happens sometimes, but you know,
but what we can be sure of is that during
the evening is that there will be Trumps speak well,
he would fail or interpretation class in college. He'll be talking.
He'll be doing stuff that other people don't do, and
talking about stuff that other people don't talk about right
(25:30):
in the middle of it, you know, because most politicians
are like, uh, well those who yeah, I'm in the
Madisonian right right right, yeah, And Trump's like dougs. A
lot of people like dogs like dogs. Cats are not nice.
(25:54):
Cats are not nice.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
And the next thing, you know, I'm feeling like, wow,
I'm thinking about Yes, I'm thinking about the cats and
dogs because they make me feel something emotionally.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
And there you go, he's figured it out. And people
don't want to admit that he figured out something brilliant.
But honestly, if you look back in history, Clinton knew it,
Reagan knew it, Winston Churchill knew it. Right, they knew
this stuff. All Reagan had to say was mister garbighow up,
(26:30):
tear down that tear boom boom. He made us all
feel something. He made us feel like we're under threat
about the whoop ass and he put that wholesome, that
wholesome you know that that wholesome Nancy and I and
(26:50):
that that it was. It was brilliant.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
You know, there were two things that we have that
how many do you have? How many impressions do you
have that you could just I'm okay, I know you'd
want to maybe go prepare if you have a little
time whatever, but just on the spot, how many impressions
do you have at the ready?
Speaker 3 (27:10):
If you gave me material, you know, I might be
able to work something out. I mean, sometimes we do
this show at the improv. We take requests from the audience,
and people try this's me and Jay Moore, and people
try to stump us, and yeah, you can come up
with quite a few. You're a nerd like me. You've
got a cachet. Stuff people ever thought about, you know
(27:34):
what I mean? Like, I'm the only person in that
room that night you sat around thinking about Richard by
trif to say, mister Vaughan, mister Vaughan, what you're dealing with?
Your is an eating machine. Right, I'm the only nerd
(27:56):
in this room to sit around thinking stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Are you a movie buff as well? I mean you study,
you obviously study these characters, but is that something you do.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
I like Turner classic movies a lot, Wow, a lot.
I mean some of those I mean, listen, some of
the old ones are hopey, but some of those old ones,
particularly the silent films, are just damn good. You know.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
The impression is like silent films. What It's just funny
someone who who actually is a brilliant savant on sounding
like other people watching silent films. I find that fascinating.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Oh well, yeah, I'm on the weird and wonderful spectrum.
We all, I'm a little weird, but I'm a little
wonder That's what I used to think about when I
lived at the French Court of New Orleans, Like it's
weird and wonderful.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
That's about right for the French Court in New Orleans
is weird and wonderful.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
Yeah, it's it's wonderful in it. That's weird, man, weirdo.
You're gonna see some crazy stuff.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Do people still come up to you on the street
or whatever it may be and just say, hey, do
Clinton or do Connery? Or do they just come up
and do that? And how do you react when people
say that? Is that annoying at all? Or you welcome it?
Speaker 3 (29:13):
I always say you do it. Chances are really good
they have an impression that they just want to they
just want to do it for oh it makes sense.
How many cities have I been in this country? Or
someone will come up to me and go, I'm not proposal.
(29:33):
You know, you don't have to think about it.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Just no, who is your darl?
Speaker 3 (29:51):
I hate?
Speaker 1 (29:52):
And again, you're not insulting anybody by this, I would say,
but I don't want anybody take it that way. But
what is your mount rushmore? For SNL, Like what's the
cast at SNL, that would be the Mount Rushmore. Again,
you're not by leaving somebody off of it, You're not
an insult anybody else there. But just who are the
all time just can't be touched greats in your mind
(30:13):
that have been a part of that SNL cast.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
Well, first of all, ask yourself if it's possible to
even answer that question right for Mount Rushmore before people,
I mean the people I saw over there were freaky
man like you think it's someone like Kate McKennon or
Maya Rudolph. Let's say, Maya can do impressions, great impressions.
(30:43):
She can act, she's a great actress. She can sing,
she's a great singer. And she can dance. I mean
she can really dance. When you look at that sort
of because I'm Broadway, there's all go about triple threats,
this is she's the Quinn tuple quintuple threat, you know,
and you see that in there. It's it's it would
(31:04):
be hard as hell to write down what you're even
looking at. Sometimes. You know, there are times when I
would be out there with Molly Shannon when she would
get hot. You know, there was the scene we did
where she played the fifty year old stripper, and I
was Sony soprano. We were at a lot of ban
and and how once she got her mark, she got
(31:27):
remarks where she was gonna be and what the camera's
urn managed to be funny during dress. But once she
had all that down, she could really let it all
out of the gate. And sometimes you sit in there watching.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Damn, damn.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
You know when they did that sketch cow bell. I
remember I was standing watching, you know the SNL that
makes a peculiar sound when everyone laughs at the same time.
You know it's two hundred and seventy five, three hundred seats,
it sounds like three hundreds break. I remember watching that sometimes,
like with Molly Shannon, just looking up there seeing the
(32:05):
Heads movie. I mean, that's magic. To me, it sounds
like magic.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah, oh, I mean SNL has always been such a
big part of even my family, like we would just
watch it from this I remember Land Shark with Chevy
Chase and all of that. But and I've been able
to actually go and watch a dress rehearsal or two,
and it is magic and the level of talent is
mind blowing. But I have to admit one of my
favorite things to watch is when you all break character,
(32:31):
when you all are laughing so hard, either at each
other or at yourselves, that you can't help but join
in on it.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Did that ever happen to you? I don't remember you
doing it that often, But did that ever happen to you?
Speaker 3 (32:42):
Yeah? Amy Koehler with could make me laugh if I
was sitting next door, if she really wanted to bear down,
you know, when we did Regis and Kelly, you know,
and she's sitting right there next to me. She's gonna
do something on air that she didn't do in terest
(33:03):
and it's gonna be brilliant. It's gonna take me by surprise,
and I would laugh. It happened a few times. And
that's the kind of thing where I mean, I never
got any flag or anything like that. They say that
Lauren didn't like you never said anything about them, because
I mean, the audience loved seeing Amy. I'm proud man, right.
(33:27):
They love seeing it, love seeing her do that.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Those moments are cool every once in a while to
see that you all are cracking each other up. But
it's good to hear that. You know, they don't get
flag for it. It happens every once in a while.
It's not that bad. We were talking we started here
talking about we were talking about mental health, and I
think a lot of I mean, you could tell is
better than anybody else. But so many folks, entertainers in
(33:52):
particular comedians have a story, have a backstory, have a story.
Something comes from pain, a mental health health experience or
mental mental illness, mental health difficulty. Do you do comedians
end up being comedians because of some trauma or because
of something which comes first? Is this got like the
(34:15):
chicken or the egg thing? Do you become these brilliant
comedians because of what you Oh, go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
Well, if that were true, every trauma patient would be.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
I didn't want to go that far. But what I'm
saying are the comedians often time? I guess, I guess.
Neil Brennan, are you probably familiar with it? We listened
to his stand up not too long ago. He went
through this whole list like this is why, like the
does the comedy create in some way the trauma or
(34:47):
the the the issues that so many the mental health
issues that so many comedians talk about them having.
Speaker 5 (34:53):
It is?
Speaker 3 (34:54):
What is it is?
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Because you're you went through something early on and then
you go into comedy or the comedy. Now you want
to be a comedian and to do that and to
be great, you suffer in other ways. You get what
I'm saying, like, which which is you know, in.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Order for something good to have something bad as to happen,
that sort of thing. I don't. I don't have the answer.
I wish I did. It's all. It's all when you
really think about making a group of people you've never
met before, You've never met them, but in just a
(35:32):
few seconds you're going to make them laugh as hard
as they can. And if you think that not a rush,
then you're not like me. I feel like that's a rush.
And I don't know. I will be doing the improv
of the night of the debated Sexual Lessenal reunion show
(35:52):
that night, and no, I'll check it out on the
bar man. I'll go up there and see if anything happened.
I mean, I don't know. That's a you know what,
I think, you're in the land of I don't know.
Just about any day of the week at Saturday Night
Live m you're in the land I don't know. We
don't know where this train is going. We don't know
(36:16):
what's going to be coming down the track on Friday?
You know what I mean. I mean the first time
I was sitting on I'm sitting on them. It's like
a cabinet there. For some reason, I was sitting in
the hallway because I knew that if I if I
sat around on Friday night right there in the hub,
you know, right before you walk in the door at
Saturday night, left just sat there, that lots of riders
(36:39):
got to walk by, and they and that might trigger
a thought, M like I wonder if he can do
can you do Heraldo?
Speaker 4 (36:48):
Can you?
Speaker 3 (36:49):
Yeah? You know? Oh, granted that they gave me much
time to learn holdo, but I got gigs that way,
you know, I got I got parts though, just sitting
give me some tapes.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
I can stay up all night, well, sitting in the
right hallway at the right time, just.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Waiting for folks to come by. Hey everyone, how's that?
How's that lobster sketch coming good?
Speaker 1 (37:15):
That lobster sketch?
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Dear.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
I know people often say when we ask musicians, like
what's your favorite song? O White, It's like choosing your
favorite child, YadA, YadA, YadA. But did you have an
impression that you enjoyed more than the others.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
No, I don't. I don't really think so. I don't know.
I think it varies from time to time. But you know,
by the end, we did Clinton like so many different ways.
He was almost like we could do drawing, comedy, we
could do slapstick, we could do oscar while, we could
(37:50):
do Shakespeare, we could do you know, a road house,
how old repute. I mean, he was such a multi
fan to the human being and be able to play
him that many times. You know, you got to say
that was the one that did you know where I
felt pretty good when I was out there most of
the time. I think the thing that I wanted to
(38:12):
say that is that the play is that pray is
about mental health. Uh, mental illness is not an airborne virus.
That's what I want to impart. That's my That's all
I got, and that's what this doctor k and the
play sets. You know, minel Els is not an airborne buvirus.
Virus as a story, and it has a beginning for
(38:38):
me that worked. I ain't saying that works for it.
I'm just telling my story, you know what I'm saying.
I don't want to be out there acting like I'm
a doctor. So I'm just telling my story and what
worked in my world.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
And it came after a lot of discovery and a
lot of doctors, and a lot of false diagnoses and
a lot of drugs, and and I think.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
Listen, listen, he can't. He practically brought my my psychicad
filing on the front low. Yeah. I mean there were
boxes and boxes and boxes, and he had a synopsis
in front of him, you know, and he's he's saying,
let me see your schizophrenic. You are psychotic, you are
(39:24):
borderline personality you you know, polar you, bipolar you, we
roll over the pope. Let's face it, use on a knut.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
And how much was he getting an hour per hour
for that?
Speaker 3 (39:47):
Well, the guy had a way of disarming me. I
don't know he got he's got that ability.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
And so I was like, yeah, probably, Yeah, Well I
think it's it's a very digestible way to talk about
something really really hard that so many people deal with
and don't know how to deal with it as a whole.
So to give people at least the idea or the
option to think about it in a holistic way where
(40:13):
you're saying it comes from a source, and discovering that
source is going to help you, you know, figure out
how to treat yourself and acknowledge the pain and then
hopefully one day live with it and then and then
makes with it. And that's Listen.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
Even if you're if a person says I have a
chemical imbalance, are what Even if if it's a beta
blocker that's needed. I mean, even if it's just that
it's there's always an ant se mhm. It comes from somewhere.
Find out where it comes from.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
You know.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
There used to be a behavior's named John Bradshaw who
used to say, if you can name it, you can
tame you know, believe me, it's a lot harder than that.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Yes, but to do it, you know, laughter is the
best medicine, they say, So to do it with humor,
but to impart actual wisdom to the audience is a
beautiful thing to do. And so we applaud you and
thank you for doing that and finding a way to mirror.
Entertaining folks and educating folks at the same time is
not an easy thing to do, and you've done it,
Darryl Hammond, So thank you for it, and we will
(41:22):
be I will be for sure listening to when we
can when it can be made available your September tenth
edition of your show, because I have a feeling it
will be both of those things, entertaining and educating.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
But you have show, and folks can keep finding cray
right now, yep, as well in audible.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
That's where they find cray on audible.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
That's where I found That's where I found it. This morning.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
I wondered they recorded it off Broadway of five times
in January, and brother, that was hard. I don't know
if you've ever had something that you were you were
doing the work and you're like, this is too hard.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Have you ever currently we're in the middle of it
right now.
Speaker 5 (42:10):
Yeah, like this, damn, this is too hard, man, I can't. Okay,
that's what we're hearsing with a Broadway director's life. He's
as hard as a football coach, harder and just me,
and it's just you and it's our it's seven hours
and you just go back over it, like and this man,
(42:33):
say the word very nice again again, that word again.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
It's stregering.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
I used to go home, man, I I used to
like limp home. I'd limp home and get under the
covers at the hotel and order. I'm service man that cat.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
He Well, we look forward to having you back on
the podcast again at some point down the road. Really,
we can't tell you. Look, man, we have followed and
a lot of people love that show, but you are
someone for us, at least of a certain age and
who followed that show for a long time that this
is a pinch yourself moment. This is something we're giddy
(43:17):
about to be able to talk to you. We're sorry
we're able to be in studio with you today, but
it is.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
Man.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
We can't tell you. You have just been a joy
to us and you're one of those people. I cannot
believe we're getting to talk to Darryl Hammond. So I
mean that sincerely, both of us do.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
So.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
It is an absolute pleasure, brother.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
Thank you. I don't know how I can respond in kind.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
Yeah, you don't have to only heard of you guys
this morning. Just don't google us whatever you do.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
I was very nervous. I was like, I hope we do. Okay,
these are some stalwart people.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
You were fantastic and we appreciate it. And I know
so many people appreciate your message and we will be
following your continued amazing career.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
So thank you, Daryl, Bless your.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
Heart, have a beautiful day, and I look forward to
doing this second time.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
We will, brother, Thank you so much. Everybody that's Darryl
having the court. You can catch Gray on Audible as
we just mentioned. You can continue to follow us you
know we are our show page at Amy and TJ
Podcast on Instagram. Talk to us soon.
Hey there, folks, want you to know I just made
an ass out of myself right before we started recording
this podcast, because an absolute legend of TV and comedy.
You believe what I asked him. I tried to explain
to him how to give us a mic check, and
I feel like an absolute moron. Welcome to this episode
of Amy and TJ. Rose.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
That was I thought it was the other thing you
did before when he caught us getting ready to get
ready and you turned it on like Daryl Hammond.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
He thought I was faking it. I wasn't faking I'm excited.
Who can't be excited to talk to Daryl Hammond? Now,
you gotta be kidding. If you go through and ask
anybody of a certain age, at least your favorite SNL
characters of all time or cast members, you cannot go
too far without his name coming up. Oh my god.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
No. And the likeness he could have of your favorite
or least favorite politician. He nailed it in a way
that most people could not even dream of. And so yes,
if you closed your eyes, it was as if you
were hearing Bill Clinton. It was as if you were
hearing Ted Copple. That was one of my favorite ones
was Sean Connery. Oh, Sean Connery and Jeffardy because you know,
(01:21):
I'm a huge double O seven fan, and Sean Connery
is not.
Speaker 1 (01:25):
There's nothing he does in those movies that make you
feel like he's a dweep, that he's a moron, right,
He's always in charge, he gets The ladies said, why
why did I just go into an impression just then?
But he give that was bold, okay.
Speaker 2 (01:35):
And maybe maybe not smart, but we're so excited and
I did.
Speaker 1 (01:39):
I made an ass out of myself because I was
that excited to have him here. So can you please
pick it up from here so I can make a
fool O.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Darryl Hammond is on the podcast today, and yes, you
can tell we are very excited. I actually was listening
to Cray this morning and was blown away by the
full story. I mean, we've you know, I know you
have been very vocal about your We always love to
make fun of people who call their lives.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Journeys, but truly you have been on one and we
all are on.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
One, and so you've been very vulnerable and very open
over the last decade or so talking about getting to
where you are today. So my first question is for you,
how are you today, Darryl Hammond? How you doing?
Speaker 3 (02:18):
I mean, I'm pretty good. I have to work it,
be healthy. I have to do cognitive therapy exercises. I
go to therapy, I go to twelve Step meetings, do
volunteer work. I do lots, and I do a lot
of yoga and a lot of meditation. So after all
that stuff I'm doing, okay.
Speaker 1 (02:40):
Just okay, all that then, just okay.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
I'm telling you, I don't know the days of joy
jumps and you know, jumping up in the air and
clicking your heels together and shouting eureka, maybe behind it.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
Wait, but you had those days?
Speaker 3 (02:58):
I did? I did? You know? Back when I was
in SNL, it was a real up and down thing
for me because most of the time I left that
show thinking that that I'm going to say fifty percent
of the time when I left that show, I thought
I had disgraced to myself. You know, someone sent me
a picture recently of me a read through with Tracy Morgan,
(03:20):
and the memories sort of came flooding back. How dissatisfied
it was with what it was I was doing in it.
I think because of the degree of difficulty. I mean,
you go to see a Vegas tribute app someone doing
an impression. It's brilliant and we love them, but they've
worked years on it. Now try doing it on Wednesday
(03:45):
before Saturday. Never done this before, never done this one before.
And you think you're gonna have forty eight hours before Saturday,
you're not. You might have five or six because there's
a whole bunch of other things you got to do.
So taking that out there, there are times where my
nerve would get so nerves would get so bad. Will
(04:06):
I'd say, why am I doing this? Damn? And I
know why I'm doing it because I'm addicted to it.
I'm a junkie for the high wire, right or I
wasn't you were?
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Would you say? You talk about all the work you've
you've done and the therapy and are you at the
healthiest you've ever been in your life right now?
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Oddly enough, so it may be so. I mean, last
week I was in a two weeks agousin Spokane. There
was a club that I wanted to play and I
did five one hour sets and I have to say
I was pleased. And you tried doing a one hour set.
(04:51):
It's not just the physicality of walking around. It's you
got to be on point for an out, do you
know what I mean? And this as went well, So
I worked really hard at it. But I don't know
if it's the healthiest I've ever been. There's probably a
time when I was, you know, when I was when
I was a teenager, I was a pretty strong kid,
(05:11):
a good baseball player, but out of my mum. So
this is the whole I got the whole package here.
Now I can't do as many chut ups as I
used to, but you.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
Know, yeah, physicality is one thing, but mental health mentally mentally,
are you are you the strongest you've been? I mean,
you put in so much work, You've put so much
out there. You've you've you've You've gone from being institutionalized
to being on I think at one time thirteen different
medications and all on a path to try and find
(05:46):
the whys and then figure out the how tos. So
where are you on your mental health right now? Would
you say you're the healthiest mentally that you've been?
Speaker 3 (05:56):
I think so absolutely. I mean you were talking about
for most of my life, certainly the times that I
described in the play crame it just wasn't a way
to self suit. You know. You would drink and that
didn't really do it, you know, and you could smoke
weed and that didn't really quite do it. You know,
I needed help. I needed a doctor with doctor K
(06:19):
in this play, who could come in and break inside
my head without injuring me and find out what was
going on in there. You know, trauma therapy is kind
of in a semptancy, and you know, he could just
as easy have killed mhm. You know people that trauma
doctors that don't know what to do when they get
(06:41):
inside there can really guide that person off off the path.
And you know, it said, I don't know what it's
like today, but back then, you know it was said,
you know, in order to save your life, sometimes have
to risk it, you know. And I don't know. I
ended up with this guy who's one hundred years ahead
of his times. I'm I have stathesia, I color code
(07:05):
all my characters, and he used that to break into
my head and figure out what was going on in there.
He used colors. I mean, talk about a freak shot, right,
I mean, that's freaky, you know what I mean? So
I people have said this is the King's speech meets
one flow of the cucus nests at SNL. Oh, that's
(07:29):
pretty close.
Speaker 1 (07:30):
That's close. How many times, Daryl, can you list or
maybe have a number. How many times will you misdiagnosed?
How many things that they going to doctors and talking
to folks that they list all these things they thought
were wrong with you. How long of a list was that.
Speaker 3 (07:45):
Well, let's let me get boring here for a second,
because in the play we say thirty nine, and that's
pretty accurate because each time you go to a treatment
center you have three Okay, so three. I had been
to six treatment centers or something like that. That's at
least eighteen. But the figure we use is thirty nine,
(08:06):
and that's just about right. I mean, people who had
the faintest idea what was wrong with me, you know,
could not figure it out. And here we meet this guy,
doctor K who said, you're this way because of something
that happened to you. Well, that was the Hall Elijah
chorus moment of my life because no one knew what
(08:27):
the hell was wrong with me. And I was like young,
you know, I had been in SNL for a while.
It was in my forties. I've been waiting for that
kind of my whole life. Something happened and then you know,
of course you got to be a genius like this
guy and break into this person's brain and pull out
(08:48):
what's in there, you know, And he did that. I
don't know how much of the Cray you've listened to,
but he did that with a series of dramatic exercise.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Yeah. I mean, it's remarkable to hear the process and
what you went through. I was also surprised to learn.
I didn't realize this. You were thirty nine before you
first even auditioned for SNL.
Speaker 3 (09:10):
Well, I auditioned in my late twenties and early thirties
and was turned down twice, and then I couldn't get
another audition until I was thirty nine. Way too old
for the show by then. But I had started practicing
for SNL when I was twenty seven years old, so
that's twelve year period. And I had this whole thing
(09:31):
that I would do where I'd try to make one
improvement per week, you know, and those sort of things
snowball and add up and you become this exponentially better
player than you were, you know. I mean I would
work on vowel sounds. I would work on centery, you
know it, where's the voices at the head, mouthed, chest, stomach.
(09:54):
I would work on all of those sounds and practice them.
And by the time I was thirty nine, I walked in.
It was the perfect time because Phil Hartman had just
retired and he was the older SNL cast, right, and
he played clip and they need someone to play clip.
So based on that they saw me. Marcy Klein saw
(10:19):
me at Caroline's and brought me into Laura Michaels based
just because she saw me do Clinton at Carolines and
it was good enough to bring me in, And her
hope was that I had additional impression. I ended up
doing probably I don't know. I want to say twenty
and three auditions. Well, you know how.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Much of that for you to hear that you had
a you practiced for twelve years for an audition at
SNL sounds wild Like people that are familiar with you,
we look at you and say, obviously he was he
has this talent, but we don't understand the work that
put in that you put into it. How much do
you think you were just born with something and had
(11:02):
a natural ability or talent or how much of it
was you worked your ass off and practiced for years
to get in certain places.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
I wouldn't dare compare myself to Steph Curry in any way,
but here it comes no, no, no, no, I didn't
mean that. But what I meant was his prep is stagnant.
Other players ain't doing that. That'sure. I mean, you just
gotta say. I mean, I don't know what the percentage is.
(11:36):
I had some ability. My mother could talk like other people.
She talked like the people in the neighborhood. She talked
like the coaches and did the teachers at school. And
I inherit some of that from her, you know, and
then later on, I mean I knew from a pretty
early age that's what I liked, do you know. I mean,
(12:00):
it's a weird, nerdy thing to do in the Deep South,
or the slightest wrinkle of individualism can get you branded.
You know.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
That is so interesting because it's so changed now with
kids today. I think it's almost flipped, you know, you
almost strive to be an individual or to be something
different or to not fit in, like that's the cool
thing to do now. But yes, we all remember it
was quite the opposite coming up. We both went to
school down south as well, so we totally get what
you're saying. How do you take a talent like that?
(12:34):
You said you got addicted to it. It was the
reaction that you got from being great at it.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Well, listen, you know, if you're from the age of
like seven until the age of thirty nine, if you're
social ail at ease and you can pop out a
puorky big impression and now you're non ill at ease,
you've got to get hooked though. Yeah. You know, if
you know you can use that nothing thing else works,
(13:01):
you know you're gonna stick with it a little bit,
you know, And you know down there, I just was
a kid that just didn't fit in necessarily later on
when I played baseball as a teenager, but in the beginning,
when I was really young, for instance, when I tried
(13:21):
to play football, I remember the coach took me aside
one day and said, you know this, He said, there
seemed to be some kind of suitable war going on
and he and I said, what he said, They're seeing
to be some kind of suitable war going on. And
(13:41):
I was like, what was that mean, coach? And he
looks at me and says something about you just getting right.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
That's what they used to say to us in the
sound of the kid was a little different. You just
ain't right. Oh he just a little crazy. So I'm
wrong with him. And that was it. We're not going
to a doctor, We're not getting diagnosed. Somebody right with him?
Speaker 3 (14:04):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's he's touched. He's touched, he's touched.
My father used to say, my name's Max Hammon, was
myself Caroyland. He's extra.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Just warning everyone you get came with the warning label
was porky pig. Your first solid impression, would you say?
Speaker 3 (14:35):
I think the first one was Popeye scat singing. You
can imagine being a child with nothing to do but
pretend everything that's going on around you is not going
on around you. And my one way of doing that
was the way he would scats sing on the way
to olive oil. You know. That was I was seven
(14:57):
eight years old, doing a vowel consonant substitute. You know,
I'm writing all that down. I wrote every single one
of those silks, you know. Yeah, So that was the
first one, and then porcupaid was the next one. Of
the vowel consonant substitutions AB, you know, we'll be, we'll be,
(15:21):
you know. And then it became doing the coach at school,
doing some I never really did celebrities back then, but
I would do the coach and the teachers and stuff
like that. It's easy to get addicted.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Do you remember your first celebrity one that you kind
of nailed and that you got comfortable with and really
good at.
Speaker 4 (15:45):
Oh boy, no, I I don't. I never really thought
they were. I didn't really think they were.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
That good, you know. And maybe that's because I knew
all the nuts and bolts behind it and everything that
I had to go through to get it. You know.
I did Jesse Jackson at the Apollo Theater, only white
(16:18):
person in the theater, and they had said that was
such a horrible crowd. If they don't like you, they'll
turn on you, and they really will, let you know.
And I went out there and I said to myself,
I have studied him for five years. I know him.
I don't insult him, and I know him and that's
(16:40):
my and that's what I'm taking out. And they can see,
oh wait, he's not around. This is a serious kid
like And also because you know, the thing is really
very complimentary. I talked about how powerful he was personally,
does he ever have actual conversation? So I just did
(17:01):
Jesse Jackson having casual conversation, and that resonates with everyone
because it compliments the person before, before the fact, you know,
which is one reason h there there. There came a
time in history when that approach to giving politicians the
(17:22):
benefit of the doubt like that, you know, just didn't
work anymore. It just didn't play well anymore. You know.
I got my style from Richard Pryor. Richard Pryor would
compliment a person beforehand, insaulted it. It's I mean, look,
he's a genius, and I knew I'd never be as
good as Richard Pryor, but boy, I want ahead in
(17:45):
that direction, you see what I mean. That's where I'm
trying to I'm trying to get there, you.
Speaker 2 (17:53):
Know, And yeah, it does because think about it, like
you were friendly with Bill Clinton. You we're friendly, well,
at least Dick Cheney wanted to hear you do, Dick Cheney.
So regardless of where you fell politically, they appreciated what
you did and how you portrayed them, even if it
was for comedic relief, and that speaks volumes to exactly
(18:15):
what you just pointed to.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
But is that right there? You're you can make you
can make the audience laugh, but you're not making fun
of the person you're impersonating. Is that you're doing an impersonation,
but you're not necessarily trying to take a dig at
all of these folks.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Well, I'm trying to do. I'm trying to get both
sides of the aisle to laugh. So what's the angle?
You know, you don't want to get too deeply personal,
you know with Shaney, and we don't want to go
in certain areas where people are going to take sides.
So I just came up with a wise, cracking, tough guy,
you know, and with Clinton charming row they were willing
(18:52):
to admit to that. Everyone, Yeah, we can play. We
can work with that. Both sides of the outcome work
with that. And you know with Trump, you know, the
the just bullhorned salesman touting his own his own narrative
(19:15):
and selling it like it ain't never been sold. But
you know, because you know people want to make fun
of him all that, but you the guy can.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Sell, oh god.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
No question. But he's thinking about thinking about I remember,
you know, years ago, when I was still doing Trump
on S and L, I went to Politicoon and Pasadena,
and you know, I said to some people out there,
I mean, there were the biggest journalists in the world
out there, and I remember saying to that, you know,
you should you shouldn't think that because you can get
a laugh about Trump's hair every time you go to
(19:50):
a cocktail park, that this is a guy to not
take serious. I mean, I said, in his office, and
trust me, that dude can look through I mean, he
can look right in there and see what's going on. Otherwise,
you know, how would he know how to take out
nineteen seas Republican candidates by finding it, by branding each
(20:13):
one of them in a way that just got them
a little off balance. Little Marco Rubio, low energy cheb,
those things, they were just a little off their game
when he would just swoop in and sell that giant
version of his narrative and sell it and then it's
(20:35):
open injure them, cripple them. They're not getting out their
best message. You put out your best message to the debates.
That's the way I stuck. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2 (20:47):
Yes, it totally does. What did Trump ever tell you
what he thought of your impersonation of him?
Speaker 3 (20:53):
He's tweeted about me twice while while president. All right,
so he seems he likes it. Okay, but I mean
with me, he seems to like it. But again I'm
giving him the benefit of the doubt. You know, I'm
saying up front. You know, he's figured out that it's
more important to make people feel than to make them think.
(21:15):
You don't want them thinking too much. Man, They can
feel feel something, and what matter? What is this making sense?
Speaker 1 (21:25):
It makes We're laughing because it all makes perfect sense
to us because we I think to your point early on,
you talking about Trump and we're not trying to get
into a political discussion, but you are. You make such
a good point about how we view our politicians, meaning
we didn't take a lot of people didn't take him
(21:45):
seriously the first time around. It was joke, joke, joke,
and this is not serious. And next thing you know, oh,
he's president. So do you find over the past? I
guess since twenty sixteen it would have been how have
you seen us or have we changed changed how we
view a Donald Trump? Or do you see us just
doing the same thing as always, And he's doing the
(22:06):
same thing as always, which is able to counter that,
and it might propel him back to the White House.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
But he isn't doing the same thing as always. He
has very I don't know, in a bizarre way. He
has hopscotched his way through the corridors of power and
up the wrongs of the ladder of political success to
the point where there's dopey God. Has the Supreme Court
(22:33):
doing his bidding?
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Yeah, I mean it's it's.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Giving him immunity already, they're doing Supreme courts doing that
stuff him again. Take him seriously, man, I mean, he's
on he's he's telling you what he's gonna do, and we.
Speaker 1 (22:53):
For some reason, some people don't want to listen.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
I mean, I don't want to be boring about this,
but I mean he's a fascinating dude.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
Yeah, I'm sure you like the rest of us. I mean, well,
I should ask you, with as much as you've had
to study these politicians when you are doing impersonations of them,
did you watch the last debate? And I noticed that
you've got a show right on the same date, September
tenth in la As the next debate between Kamala Harris
(23:24):
and Donald Trump. I believe you go on at seven
thirty Pacific time, right when the debate ends.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Do you still watch these debates?
Speaker 3 (23:30):
Do you still.
Speaker 1 (23:32):
Observe it?
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Study? I'm going to watch this one. And yeah, I watched.
I watched the Trump Byen debate. But he did the
same thing in that bit. He realized because he is
a canny, wary, streaked mentality. God, he understood that. All
(23:57):
he had to do was I don't know what you're doing.
I don't know what you're talking and I don't think
you know what you're talking about. That's all I had
to saidee and Biden came undone. He didn't want to
be seen as piling on and and and he didn't
want to be seeing his elder abuse and pilot on
the old guy because the man was a pair. And
now he was suspended. Yeah, by that one line. So
(24:22):
he's done this every time he's ever done a debate.
I mean remember when he did told her old company's
gonna put her.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
In jail yep, and then became the mantra.
Speaker 3 (24:34):
Yeah, I mean he understood that in her entire lifetime,
no one has ever walked up to her and spoke
to her like that and just got her a little
off her game, and then he settled it. I hope
this is this is all nerd talk, so I hope
it's not too boring.
Speaker 2 (24:50):
Oh no, I'm actually I was interested to see if
you're gonna, like, I'm imagining you backstage prepping for your
show and watching the debate and then will you Are
you somebody who can watch the debate between those two
and then bring it into the the live audience just
moments later?
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Are you?
Speaker 2 (25:07):
Is that even a plan or a thought?
Speaker 3 (25:08):
Yeah, I mean that that happens sometimes, but you know,
but what we can be sure of is that during
the evening is that there will be Trumps speak well,
he would fail or interpretation class in college. He'll be talking.
He'll be doing stuff that other people don't do, and
talking about stuff that other people don't talk about right
(25:30):
in the middle of it, you know, because most politicians
are like, uh, well those who yeah, I'm in the
Madisonian right right right, yeah, And Trump's like dougs. A
lot of people like dogs like dogs. Cats are not nice.
(25:54):
Cats are not nice.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
And the next thing, you know, I'm feeling like, wow,
I'm thinking about Yes, I'm thinking about the cats and
dogs because they make me feel something emotionally.
Speaker 3 (26:06):
And there you go, he's figured it out. And people
don't want to admit that he figured out something brilliant.
But honestly, if you look back in history, Clinton knew it,
Reagan knew it, Winston Churchill knew it. Right, they knew
this stuff. All Reagan had to say was mister garbighow up,
(26:30):
tear down that tear boom boom. He made us all
feel something. He made us feel like we're under threat
about the whoop ass and he put that wholesome, that
wholesome you know that that wholesome Nancy and I and
(26:50):
that that it was. It was brilliant.
Speaker 1 (26:54):
You know, there were two things that we have that
how many do you have? How many impressions do you
have that you could just I'm okay, I know you'd
want to maybe go prepare if you have a little
time whatever, but just on the spot, how many impressions
do you have at the ready?
Speaker 3 (27:10):
If you gave me material, you know, I might be
able to work something out. I mean, sometimes we do
this show at the improv. We take requests from the audience,
and people try this's me and Jay Moore, and people
try to stump us, and yeah, you can come up
with quite a few. You're a nerd like me. You've
got a cachet. Stuff people ever thought about, you know
(27:34):
what I mean? Like, I'm the only person in that
room that night you sat around thinking about Richard by
trif to say, mister Vaughan, mister Vaughan, what you're dealing with?
Your is an eating machine. Right, I'm the only nerd
(27:56):
in this room to sit around thinking stuff like that.
Speaker 2 (28:01):
Are you a movie buff as well? I mean you study,
you obviously study these characters, but is that something you do.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
I like Turner classic movies a lot, Wow, a lot.
I mean some of those I mean, listen, some of
the old ones are hopey, but some of those old ones,
particularly the silent films, are just damn good. You know.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
The impression is like silent films. What It's just funny
someone who who actually is a brilliant savant on sounding
like other people watching silent films. I find that fascinating.
Speaker 3 (28:35):
Oh well, yeah, I'm on the weird and wonderful spectrum.
We all, I'm a little weird, but I'm a little
wonder That's what I used to think about when I
lived at the French Court of New Orleans, Like it's
weird and wonderful.
Speaker 1 (28:49):
That's about right for the French Court in New Orleans
is weird and wonderful.
Speaker 3 (28:53):
Yeah, it's it's wonderful in it. That's weird, man, weirdo.
You're gonna see some crazy stuff.
Speaker 1 (29:00):
Do people still come up to you on the street
or whatever it may be and just say, hey, do
Clinton or do Connery? Or do they just come up
and do that? And how do you react when people
say that? Is that annoying at all? Or you welcome it?
Speaker 3 (29:13):
I always say you do it. Chances are really good
they have an impression that they just want to they
just want to do it for oh it makes sense.
How many cities have I been in this country? Or
someone will come up to me and go, I'm not proposal.
(29:33):
You know, you don't have to think about it.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Just no, who is your darl?
Speaker 3 (29:51):
I hate?
Speaker 1 (29:52):
And again, you're not insulting anybody by this, I would say,
but I don't want anybody take it that way. But
what is your mount rushmore? For SNL, Like what's the
cast at SNL, that would be the Mount Rushmore. Again,
you're not by leaving somebody off of it, You're not
an insult anybody else there. But just who are the
all time just can't be touched greats in your mind
(30:13):
that have been a part of that SNL cast.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
Well, first of all, ask yourself if it's possible to
even answer that question right for Mount Rushmore before people,
I mean the people I saw over there were freaky
man like you think it's someone like Kate McKennon or
Maya Rudolph. Let's say, Maya can do impressions, great impressions.
(30:43):
She can act, she's a great actress. She can sing,
she's a great singer. And she can dance. I mean
she can really dance. When you look at that sort
of because I'm Broadway, there's all go about triple threats,
this is she's the Quinn tuple quintuple threat, you know,
and you see that in there. It's it's it would
(31:04):
be hard as hell to write down what you're even
looking at. Sometimes. You know, there are times when I
would be out there with Molly Shannon when she would
get hot. You know, there was the scene we did
where she played the fifty year old stripper, and I
was Sony soprano. We were at a lot of ban
and and how once she got her mark, she got
(31:27):
remarks where she was gonna be and what the camera's
urn managed to be funny during dress. But once she
had all that down, she could really let it all
out of the gate. And sometimes you sit in there watching.
Speaker 2 (31:41):
Damn, damn.
Speaker 3 (31:44):
You know when they did that sketch cow bell. I
remember I was standing watching, you know the SNL that
makes a peculiar sound when everyone laughs at the same time.
You know it's two hundred and seventy five, three hundred seats,
it sounds like three hundreds break. I remember watching that sometimes,
like with Molly Shannon, just looking up there seeing the
(32:05):
Heads movie. I mean, that's magic. To me, it sounds
like magic.
Speaker 2 (32:11):
Yeah, oh, I mean SNL has always been such a
big part of even my family, like we would just
watch it from this I remember Land Shark with Chevy
Chase and all of that. But and I've been able
to actually go and watch a dress rehearsal or two,
and it is magic and the level of talent is
mind blowing. But I have to admit one of my
favorite things to watch is when you all break character,
(32:31):
when you all are laughing so hard, either at each
other or at yourselves, that you can't help but join
in on it.
Speaker 1 (32:37):
Did that ever happen to you? I don't remember you
doing it that often, But did that ever happen to you?
Speaker 3 (32:42):
Yeah? Amy Koehler with could make me laugh if I
was sitting next door, if she really wanted to bear down,
you know, when we did Regis and Kelly, you know,
and she's sitting right there next to me. She's gonna
do something on air that she didn't do in terest
(33:03):
and it's gonna be brilliant. It's gonna take me by surprise,
and I would laugh. It happened a few times. And
that's the kind of thing where I mean, I never
got any flag or anything like that. They say that
Lauren didn't like you never said anything about them, because
I mean, the audience loved seeing Amy. I'm proud man, right.
(33:27):
They love seeing it, love seeing her do that.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Those moments are cool every once in a while to
see that you all are cracking each other up. But
it's good to hear that. You know, they don't get
flag for it. It happens every once in a while.
It's not that bad. We were talking we started here
talking about we were talking about mental health, and I
think a lot of I mean, you could tell is
better than anybody else. But so many folks, entertainers in
(33:52):
particular comedians have a story, have a backstory, have a story.
Something comes from pain, a mental health health experience or
mental mental illness, mental health difficulty. Do you do comedians
end up being comedians because of some trauma or because
of something which comes first? Is this got like the
(34:15):
chicken or the egg thing? Do you become these brilliant
comedians because of what you Oh, go ahead, go ahead.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
Well, if that were true, every trauma patient would be.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
I didn't want to go that far. But what I'm
saying are the comedians often time? I guess, I guess.
Neil Brennan, are you probably familiar with it? We listened
to his stand up not too long ago. He went
through this whole list like this is why, like the
does the comedy create in some way the trauma or
(34:47):
the the the issues that so many the mental health
issues that so many comedians talk about them having.
Speaker 5 (34:53):
It is?
Speaker 3 (34:54):
What is it is?
Speaker 1 (34:55):
Because you're you went through something early on and then
you go into comedy or the comedy. Now you want
to be a comedian and to do that and to
be great, you suffer in other ways. You get what
I'm saying, like, which which is you know, in.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
Order for something good to have something bad as to happen,
that sort of thing. I don't. I don't have the answer.
I wish I did. It's all. It's all when you
really think about making a group of people you've never
met before, You've never met them, but in just a
(35:32):
few seconds you're going to make them laugh as hard
as they can. And if you think that not a rush,
then you're not like me. I feel like that's a rush.
And I don't know. I will be doing the improv
of the night of the debated Sexual Lessenal reunion show
(35:52):
that night, and no, I'll check it out on the
bar man. I'll go up there and see if anything happened.
I mean, I don't know. That's a you know what,
I think, you're in the land of I don't know.
Just about any day of the week at Saturday Night
Live m you're in the land I don't know. We
don't know where this train is going. We don't know
(36:16):
what's going to be coming down the track on Friday?
You know what I mean. I mean the first time
I was sitting on I'm sitting on them. It's like
a cabinet there. For some reason, I was sitting in
the hallway because I knew that if I if I
sat around on Friday night right there in the hub,
you know, right before you walk in the door at
Saturday night, left just sat there, that lots of riders
(36:39):
got to walk by, and they and that might trigger
a thought, M like I wonder if he can do
can you do Heraldo?
Speaker 4 (36:48):
Can you?
Speaker 3 (36:49):
Yeah? You know? Oh, granted that they gave me much
time to learn holdo, but I got gigs that way,
you know, I got I got parts though, just sitting
give me some tapes.
Speaker 2 (37:01):
I can stay up all night, well, sitting in the
right hallway at the right time, just.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Waiting for folks to come by. Hey everyone, how's that?
How's that lobster sketch coming good?
Speaker 1 (37:15):
That lobster sketch?
Speaker 3 (37:17):
Dear.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
I know people often say when we ask musicians, like
what's your favorite song? O White, It's like choosing your
favorite child, YadA, YadA, YadA. But did you have an
impression that you enjoyed more than the others.
Speaker 3 (37:29):
No, I don't. I don't really think so. I don't know.
I think it varies from time to time. But you know,
by the end, we did Clinton like so many different ways.
He was almost like we could do drawing, comedy, we
could do slapstick, we could do oscar while, we could
(37:50):
do Shakespeare, we could do you know, a road house,
how old repute. I mean, he was such a multi
fan to the human being and be able to play
him that many times. You know, you got to say
that was the one that did you know where I
felt pretty good when I was out there most of
the time. I think the thing that I wanted to
(38:12):
say that is that the play is that pray is
about mental health. Uh, mental illness is not an airborne virus.
That's what I want to impart. That's my That's all
I got, and that's what this doctor k and the
play sets. You know, minel Els is not an airborne buvirus.
Virus as a story, and it has a beginning for
(38:38):
me that worked. I ain't saying that works for it.
I'm just telling my story, you know what I'm saying.
I don't want to be out there acting like I'm
a doctor. So I'm just telling my story and what
worked in my world.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
And it came after a lot of discovery and a
lot of doctors, and a lot of false diagnoses and
a lot of drugs, and and I think.
Speaker 3 (39:00):
Listen, listen, he can't. He practically brought my my psychicad
filing on the front low. Yeah. I mean there were
boxes and boxes and boxes, and he had a synopsis
in front of him, you know, and he's he's saying,
let me see your schizophrenic. You are psychotic, you are
(39:24):
borderline personality you you know, polar you, bipolar you, we
roll over the pope. Let's face it, use on a knut.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
And how much was he getting an hour per hour
for that?
Speaker 3 (39:47):
Well, the guy had a way of disarming me. I
don't know he got he's got that ability.
Speaker 2 (39:52):
And so I was like, yeah, probably, Yeah, Well I
think it's it's a very digestible way to talk about
something really really hard that so many people deal with
and don't know how to deal with it as a whole.
So to give people at least the idea or the
option to think about it in a holistic way where
(40:13):
you're saying it comes from a source, and discovering that
source is going to help you, you know, figure out
how to treat yourself and acknowledge the pain and then
hopefully one day live with it and then and then
makes with it. And that's Listen.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
Even if you're if a person says I have a
chemical imbalance, are what Even if if it's a beta
blocker that's needed. I mean, even if it's just that
it's there's always an ant se mhm. It comes from somewhere.
Find out where it comes from.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
You know.
Speaker 3 (40:50):
There used to be a behavior's named John Bradshaw who
used to say, if you can name it, you can
tame you know, believe me, it's a lot harder than that.
Speaker 2 (41:01):
Yes, but to do it, you know, laughter is the
best medicine, they say, So to do it with humor,
but to impart actual wisdom to the audience is a
beautiful thing to do. And so we applaud you and
thank you for doing that and finding a way to mirror.
Entertaining folks and educating folks at the same time is
not an easy thing to do, and you've done it,
Darryl Hammond, So thank you for it, and we will
(41:22):
be I will be for sure listening to when we
can when it can be made available your September tenth
edition of your show, because I have a feeling it
will be both of those things, entertaining and educating.
Speaker 1 (41:36):
But you have show, and folks can keep finding cray
right now, yep, as well in audible.
Speaker 3 (41:42):
That's where they find cray on audible.
Speaker 1 (41:44):
That's where I found That's where I found it. This morning.
Speaker 3 (41:48):
I wondered they recorded it off Broadway of five times
in January, and brother, that was hard. I don't know
if you've ever had something that you were you were
doing the work and you're like, this is too hard.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Have you ever currently we're in the middle of it
right now.
Speaker 5 (42:10):
Yeah, like this, damn, this is too hard, man, I can't. Okay,
that's what we're hearsing with a Broadway director's life. He's
as hard as a football coach, harder and just me,
and it's just you and it's our it's seven hours
and you just go back over it, like and this man,
(42:33):
say the word very nice again again, that word again.
Speaker 2 (42:42):
It's stregering.
Speaker 3 (42:44):
I used to go home, man, I I used to
like limp home. I'd limp home and get under the
covers at the hotel and order. I'm service man that cat.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
He Well, we look forward to having you back on
the podcast again at some point down the road. Really,
we can't tell you. Look, man, we have followed and
a lot of people love that show, but you are
someone for us, at least of a certain age and
who followed that show for a long time that this
is a pinch yourself moment. This is something we're giddy
(43:17):
about to be able to talk to you. We're sorry
we're able to be in studio with you today, but
it is.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
Man.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
We can't tell you. You have just been a joy
to us and you're one of those people. I cannot
believe we're getting to talk to Darryl Hammond. So I
mean that sincerely, both of us do.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
So.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
It is an absolute pleasure, brother.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
Thank you. I don't know how I can respond in kind.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
Yeah, you don't have to only heard of you guys
this morning. Just don't google us whatever you do.
Speaker 3 (43:45):
I was very nervous. I was like, I hope we do. Okay,
these are some stalwart people.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
You were fantastic and we appreciate it. And I know
so many people appreciate your message and we will be
following your continued amazing career.
Speaker 1 (44:01):
So thank you, Daryl, Bless your.
Speaker 3 (44:03):
Heart, have a beautiful day, and I look forward to
doing this second time.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
We will, brother, Thank you so much. Everybody that's Darryl
having the court. You can catch Gray on Audible as
we just mentioned. You can continue to follow us you
know we are our show page at Amy and TJ
Podcast on Instagram. Talk to us soon.
Hosts And Creators
Amy Robach
T.J. Holmes
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