How the Saturday Night Live star becomes the Donald.
1. The Mind-set
“We call it ‘Trump Vision.’ You see it in Tom Brady, Derek Jeter: people who expect things to work out for them. I bought a book called Learned Optimism, by Martin Seligman, and after I read it, I knew what to do — just keep marching forward. It’s the inability to compute negativity.â€
2. The Voice
“I created an amalgam that captured all five of his voices,†from softest to loudest. “For the pure Trump sound, I use the word person. It has a tonal quality that I want.â€
3. The Body
“The impression starts with “home base,†as Hammond calls it. “Trump tilts his head slightly backward, narrows is eyes a little bit, purses his lips, and surveys everything.†There are also gestural tics, like “the rubber band,†in which Trump “looks like he’s using his hands and stretching a large elastic bandâ€Â in front of his body.
*This article appears in the June 13, 2016 issue of New York Magazine.