10 Surprising Facts About Darrell Hammond
One night he’s Bill Clinton, and then the next week he’s Donald Trump. But who is the real Darrell Hammond? From his new book, God, If You’re Not Up There, I’m F*cked, we present 10 crazy things you didn’t know about Darrell Hammond. By Tom HardejOkay, to be fair, there’s probably a lot you don’t know about Darrell Hammond. Part of being a comedian is being a chameleon, and no one does that better. One night he’s Bill Clinton, and then the next week on Saturday Night Live he’s Donald Trump, or Sean Connery, or Phil Donahue, or…well, you get the picture. But it hasn’t always been fun and games. In his new book, God, If You’re Not Up There, I’m F*cked, he details the many things he’s had to endure, including distant and abusive parents, drugs, alcohol, secret cutting, mental illness, jail, rehab, more rehab, and the suicides of two people close to him. That seems like too much for one person to deal with, but somehow Darrell Hammond keeps fighting, and best of all (for us anyway) keeps laughing. So here we present 10 Crazy Things You Didn’t Know About Darrell Hammond.
1. Darrell’s mom was hard on him when he was young, but he discovered early on that doing impressions of people in the neighborhood made her laugh. “If for nothing else, she seemed to love me for that.” (It seems like that would come in handy later!)
2. Darrell is really into baseball. He uses baseball metaphors all through the book, but he also played for his community college team in Florida and dreamed of making it to the majors.
3. Truman Capote once spoke at his school and inspired Darrell to take to the stage. Capote made a joke and got big laughs. “I thought,” he says, “whatever that is, I want that.”
4. When he was a young comic, he took to the road with Billy Gardell, who now plays the Mike half of Mike & Molly. “[Billy] was only 18 then, but he already wrote brilliant stuff.”
5. When Darrell found out he made it onto SNL, he had a big celebration—not by partying, but by going to see Les Miz. He says: “I loved that show. I’d seen it about 10 times. I couldn’t get enough of it; we bought the most expensive tickets they had left.”
6. On SNL, the first impression Darrell ever did was of Ted Koppel, and host Mariel Hemingway loved it.
7. Darrell says that Monica Lewinsky is a great kisser, but his mom wasn’t thrilled with that one: “’You didn’t really kiss her, did you?’ Yeah, Ma, we all know where her mouth has been. Thanks for reminding me.”
8. Darrell has been diagnosed with at least five different kinds of mental illness and has seen more than two dozen psychiatrists.
9. Dick Cheney thought Darrell was so funny that he once invited him to the underground bunker in West Virginia in character to make jokes for his pals (you know, Tom Delay, Trent Lott, Dennis Hastert)—not as Dick Cheney, but as Bill Clinton. He says: “There didn’t seem to be any reason for the gathering; it was just a bunch of pals having a good time. Everyone wanted to pose for a photo with ‘Bill Clinton.’”
10. He relapses sometimes even still. But it doesn’t mean he doesn’t keep trying. He says: “Nobody’s ever really free of their baggage. I mean, I’m not in jail and there are no more flashbacks, no more nightmares, no more cold sweats, no more cutting, no more heavy pharmaceuticals. I smile from time to time. I still wear a lot of black, but I’m thinking about going clothing shopping.”