5 ‘SNL’ Cast Members Who Had to Confront the Real People They Impersonated
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? Easy to say until you’re the one Saturday Night Live is mocking.
What happens when SNL impressionists are forced to reckon with the consequences of their comedy? Lucky for the comics, most spoofed celebrities enjoy being in on the joke. But as you’ll see in these five examples, that isn’t always the case…
Jim Breuer and Joe Pesci
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If you don’t count Goat Boy — and who does, really? — Joe Pesci was Breuer’s most popular character. Breuer played him nine times as host of the fictional Joe Pesci Show, portraying the actor as the Mafia goon he played in movies like Goodfellas.
“I grew up with some characters so I know that world exists,” Breuer explained on the Opie & Anthony Show. And when Pesci showed up for a cameo on SNL, he lived up to that reputation during a backstage visit with Breuer. “He got dead serious,” the comic remembered.
“Are you Italian?”
“No, I’m not Italian, but I grew up in Long Island and I…”
‘I didn’t ask where you grew up,” growled Pesci. “I said, Are you Italian? Are you fucking Italian?”
“No, I’m not Italian.”
“Where do you get off saying (Italian slurs) d***, w**, g*****?”
It got worse from there, with Breuer trying to blame his writers (Pesci had already talked to the writers, who blamed Breuer) and the comic promising never to do the sketch again. He was practically in tears when Pesci revealed, “I’m just busting your chops.”
Norm Macdonald and Bob Dole
Macdonald hated doing Dole, mainly because he wanted to focus on Weekend Update. “All of a sudden he’s the candidate, and then I have to appear in people’s fucking sketches every week on some lame premise,” Macdonald said in SNL oral history Live From New York.
Dole was a good sport about Macdonald’s impression, appearing alongside Macdonald in an SNL cold open. While Macdonald died in the fall of 2021 (just a few months before Dole passed away at age 98), Dole tweeted: “Norm @normmacdonald was a great talent, and I loved laughing with him on SNL. *Bob Dole* will miss Norm Macdonald.”
Dana Carvey and George H.W. Bush
After Bush lost his re-election bid in 1992, he reached out to Carvey for the first time, the comic remembered in the New York Times. “Well Dana, wondering if you would consider coming out to the White House and help cheer up the staff. Folks are a little down. Could use a laugh.”
Carvey agreed, showing up at the Oval Office to lighten the mood. Bush even had Carvey try to fool the Secret Service with his impression.
The two continued their unlikely friendship for 25 years. “My wife and I happily received Christmas cards every year, as well as other postcards and letters,” Carvey remembered. “When I had a health scare in 1998, President Bush wrote to me to ask: ‘Can I do anything Dana? We’ve got great doctors right here in Houston.’ When we did charity events together, I did my Ross Perot impression for him, and he would always laugh.”
Will Ferrell and Janet Reno
“I originally wanted to do this thing where she was almost like a bodyguard for President Clinton,” Ferrell told the Washington Post Magazine, “and they’d be in Cabinet meetings and she wouldn’t say anything, and then if Clinton didn’t like the person, she’d be like, ‘Bill, do you want me to get rid of him?’”
Reno was a good sport, showing up after her last day as U.S. Attorney General to dance alongside Ferrell. “I thought it was just kind of a spoof of this 6-foot-1 big old girl,” she told Washington Post. “I can’t figure out why anybody’s that interested in me.”
Tina Fey and Sarah Palin
Fey’s post-SNL career got a turbo boost when she agreed to moonlight as the vice-presidential candidate. But when Palin agreed to cameo on Saturday Night Live, Fey had no interest in meeting her. “Tina was terrified of anything where they would be together looking like an endorsement,” Lorne Michaels explained in Live From New York. “When you’re standing next to somebody, it’s hard, very hard, not to be gracious and not want to see another person in stress.”
Fey did have to come face-to-face with Palin before the show — they walked past each other in the 30 Rock halls — but the two didn’t speak. Palin at least got to meet “Tina Fey’s in-laws, whom I adore,” she said. “That was a valuable connection right there.”
“If I ran into Tina Fey again today, I would say, ‘You need to at least pay for my kids’ braces or something from all the money that you made off of pretending that you’re me!’” Palin said. “My goodness, you capitalized on that! Can’t you contribute a little bit? Jeez!”