Kenan Thompson’s done well for himself by mimicking others

Doing impersonations is serious business. Get them right and your audience falls all over you. Hell, even the subject might let you know you’ve done an admirable job.

Get the mimic wrong… Well, he or she will let you know about that too.

“Every time I watch like Jay Leno’s new show,” comedian Kenan Thompson begins, “I [wonder] if I’ll ever get a chance to be on there because I went on The Tonight Show and tried to do a Jay Leno. He hated it. I mean, it was a bad Jay Leno impression. I don’t even think they aired it when, you know, they showed the interview or whatever. It was just like an awful moment. He really hated my Jay Leno impression.”

A six-year veteran on the sketch comedy institution Saturday Night Live, Thompson’s Leno copy might be one of the few impressions he’s yet to master. No matter if the moment called for Al Roker, Maya Angelou or a gay Target shopper, the 31-year-old Atlanta native has consistently nailed the role.

“You try to go with something that’s familiar to people,” explains the former Nickelodeon star of his comedic approach. “That way they can jump on board with what you’re trying to do, basically. I only mimic people that really have like interesting voices because it’s really hard to mimic someone who just talks regularly like me. There’s nothing fun about that.”

Of course, impersonations aren’t the only thing Kenan Thompson does well. When Hollywood needed a leading man for a big-screen adaptation of the classic Fat Albert cartoon, Thompson was there. When Nike called for a silly voice for its LeBron James puppet, guess who it looked up? Oh, and when the USA Network hit dramedy Psyche sought out a quality actor to sell his part in a barbershop quartet, you already know what happened. Yet even with all of that, Thompson still credits SNL for preparing him for the gigs his agent tosses his way.

“A lot of people that graduated from the show [say], ‘This show is nothing like anything else,’” confirms Thompson, who appears to be channeling his comedic energies on NBC these days. “Everything else is downhill from here. They’re right. I’ll do guest stars and stuff like that in between shows and all you do is come in and say your lines like how it was when you were auditioning, you know? [With] SNL you have your hand on the pulse. And, you know, if what you do isn’t funny, then you don’t get to be on the show. And no other show is like that. So, yeah it is preparing you to be able to deal with any situation.”

So, folks, if you should see the ever-alert Kenan Thompson on the street, ask him to portray a versatile, hard-working actor with a good sense of humor. We can almost guarantee you he’ll nail the impersonation.

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