Is Alec Baldwin leaving Saturday Night Live, Donald Trump role?
So what’s the reason for that? It doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with Baldwin’s dislike of playing the President (which he has talked about in the past); instead, it seems (per an interview with USA Today) like his schedule is about to make it so much harder to do the show and also spend time with his family:
“I can’t imagine I would do it again … I just can’t. They should find somebody who wants to do it. They’re all my dear friends and I love going there, but the other thing is that I’m going to go to work this fall in a way I haven’t done in a while. My wife and I had a son a year ago, and since he was born, I’ve worked minimally because I wanted to be there for my wife and kids. But the party’s over this fall and I’ll be traveling. SNL just crushes my weekends, and now weekends are going to become much more precious to me because that’s time with my kids.”
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Baldwin was a little bit ambiguous on the subject of who should end up replacing him on the show:
“I don’t know. Darrell Hammond did it and is a far better impressionist than I’ll ever be. When Anthony Atamanuik (started impersonating Trump on Comedy Central’s The President Show), all these people were attacking me, saying, ‘Oh, your impression sucks and you suck. Please go away.’ It also was something I thought to myself: ‘I really don’t have a lot invested in my Trump impersonation, so please find someone and convince Lorne (Michaels) to replace me.’ I’m completely down with that. Winning the Emmy for that show aside, it was not some career goal of mine.”
So what’s the big problem with replacing Baldwin?
A lot of it simply has to do with viewer recognition. While we’ve seen Hammond and, at times, Taran Killam play the President, it’s hard to really imagine someone other than Alec in this role at the moment. The good news for SNL is that they’ve got a lot of time in order to figure this out. With the election not for over a year, they shouldn’t have to worry about rushing someone into the gig if Baldwin is completely done with the role.
In the end, it may actually be the best thing for SNL in the event that they can find someone else to play this Presidential role. Just think about things through this lens — Baldwin was getting a lot of criticism over the past few months anyway, with a lot of critics proclaiming that his version of Trump didn’t have any freshness to it anymore. This allows someone else to take on the part and in the end, that could be for the best.
For more news…
Check out the story here, where Kenan Thompson discusses why he is not going to be leaving the show anytime soon.
Do you think SNL should jump at the chance to find a new Trump, and will you miss Alec Baldwin? Be sure to share right now in the comments. (Photo: NBC.)