Alec Baldwin says the key to being Donald Trump is in the 'puffs' between his words

Alec Baldwin.
(Image credit: Michael Loccisano/Getty Images)

Alec Baldwin has his impression of President-elect Donald Trump down to a science. To play his recurring role as the president-elect on Saturday Night Live, the actor watched "hours of rallies and campaign appearances" to nail Trump's hand movements, and he made especially careful note of Trump's speech patterns, Baldwin told The New York Times in an interview published Tuesday:

The key to a convincing Mr. Trump, the actor said, are "puffs" — his word for the pregnant pauses in the president-elect's speech. "I see a guy who seems to pause and dig for the more precise and better language he wants to use, and never finds it," Mr. Baldwin said in an interview on Saturday in his dressing room at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, six hours before show time, his eyebrows already peaked. "It's the same dish — it's a grilled-cheese sandwich rhetorically over and over again." [The New York Times]

Top that off with the wig, the lip pucker, and the bronzer dusted everywhere but underneath the eyes, and Baldwin goes live with a Trump impression that's quite successfully gotten under the president-elect's skin.

For Baldwin's full interview on playing Trump, head over to The New York Times.

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