Alec Baldwin to play Donald Trump on ‘SNL’ this season
Alec Baldwin will portray Donald Trump on this season of "Saturday Night Live." Credit: Getty Images / Michael Loccisano
Alec Baldwin will portray Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump throughout the upcoming season of “Saturday Night Live.”
Following the release Wednesday of a promotional video clip showing Massapequa-reared Baldwin, 58, as Trump and Sea Cliff native Kate McKinnon, 32, reprising her role as Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, The Hollywood Reporter said Baldwin had signed on earlier this week. The trade publication added that executive producer Lorne Michaels over the summer had chosen his friend and two-time Emmy Award-winner Baldwin for the part.
Baldwin succeeds the now-departed Taran Killam and show announcer Darrell Hammond in the role of the real estate developer and reality show star.
A spokeswoman for the show had no comment. As of late Wednesday afternoon Baldwin had not posted on social media about the new role.
Baldwin has guest-hosted the NBC late-night sketch-comedy show 16 times, more than anyone, spanning from his inaugural gig in 1990 to the Season 37 premiere on September 24, 2011. His work has included comic impersonations of Tony Bennett, Bono, Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Harvey Fierstein, David Hasselhoff, Al Pacino, Charles Nelson Reilly and even another Republican politician, then-Texas Governor and presidential hopeful Rick Perry, in a 2011 episode. Trump, 70, himself hosted the show in November.
“SNL” begins its 42nd season Oct. 1, with “Suicide Squad” star Margot Robbie as host and musical guest The Weeknd. Broadway’s “Hamilton” creator-star, Tony Award-winner Lin-Manuel Miranda, will host the following week, with Twenty One Pilots as musical guest.
Baldwin, who won 2008 and 2009 Outstanding Lead Actor in a Comedy Series Emmy Awards for his role as network executive Jack Donaghy on “30 Rock,” has starred in numerous films including “Beetlejuice” (1988), “The Hunt for Red October” (1990) and “It’s Complicated” (2009). He appears opposite Diane Lane in writer-director Eleanor Coppola’s “Paris Can Wait,” which premiered this month at the Toronto International Film Festival.
