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