Saturday Night Live‘s after-parties have a reputation of being a wild, celeb-packed time. Interesting things happen when famous folk rub elbows with other famous folk as Saturday night morphs into Sunday morning. Mad Men star and reliable SNL host Jon Hamm shared a fascinating tidbit about a strange encounter he had at one of these post-show get-togethers.
Tucked into a New York Times profile piece on Hamm is the actor laying out what happened when he visited the SNL after-party that happened after Donald Trump hosted. According to Hamm, the future president and a former Fox News figurehead tried to go alpha on Don Draper.
“He was with Bill O’Reilly,” recalled Hamm. “They’re both tall dudes. And I’m a tall dude. And they both do that tall-dude thing, which is try to intimidate you. And it doesn’t work on me. I’m like, ‘I’m as alpha as you. Let’s go. You’re not going to chest-bump me.’ It was a very weird night. It was the shortest I’ve ever stayed at an SNL after-party.”
Donald Trump Jr., no stranger to trying to project an “alpha” type image, swiped at Hamm online for his view of events.
“Pro tip: If you have to tell others you’re an alpha… you’re not,” wrote Trump Jr.
Pro tip: If you have to tell others you're an alpha… you're not. https://t.co/OwI6WYafwj
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) September 15, 2017
Elsewhere in Trump-related SNL talk, you can add former cast member Jon Rudnitsky to the collection of voices that say it was miserable dealing with the ex-Apprentice star as a host. Rudnitsky shared with People how difficult it was getting Trump to do material and even stay on the cue cards of the stuff he did agree to.
“He had trouble with the sketches, and if a sketch wasn’t complimentary about him — mainly physically — he wasn’t into it,” said Rudnitsky. “He was just onto the next if it wasn’t about how great he was. I’m totally serious. I mean, there were some really funny sketches that he just didn’t get. His sense of humor is definitely skewed.”
Making things even more frustrating for everyone at SNL was Trump’s supreme confidence in his improv skills.
“On set, he would be like, ‘I’m going to riff — I’m just going to riff here,’” explained Rudnitsky. “By the way, nobody riffs on SNL. Not Will Ferrell, not anybody in the history of SNL has ever riffed. There are cue cards there for a reason, it’s live. And he went off on the show, and you can kind of tell when he’s trying to do a thing. You’re like, ‘Eh, you’re not a comedian.’”
If any of Trump’s attempts at improv or comedy pitches dished out in the lead up to the show were taped there is no universe where a supercut doesn’t get watched at every end of the year party. Or probably Halloween based on how things panned out.
(Via New York Times)
