Copyright The Hollywood Reporter
As the country’s pre-eminent Donald Trump channeler, James Austin Johnson has been spending some time doing White House grinchiness lately. But the Saturday Night Live star will soon be making the idea literal: he’s bringing his Wondery production ‘Tis The Grinch Holiday Podcast back for another season. Johnson has starred as the title character the last two autumns, blending a mix of modern Seussian character and guest interviews (they try to get him to feel the cheer as he sneaks in questions). Johnson is leveling up the guests this year as The Hollywood Reporter has learned that Mark Hamill, The Jonas Brothers, activist Jameela Jamil and Rob Gronkowski all turn up. “If you like the comedy of Eric Andre and Cunk on Earth that blends sketch and interview but somehow is also for kids, this is for you, Johnson says, invoking some disparate elements. Performers Ben Schwartz, David Henrie, Ego Nwodim and Devery Jacobs help round out the guest list for the weekly pod, whose ten-episode season kicks off Nov 10. (You can get a first look at the trailer below.) The news comes as Dr. Seuss Enterprises – the estate that also produces the podcast – announced this week it will release a new book based on a found Theodore Geisel manuscript. Johnson didn’t think he wanted to do family entertainment until he found an unmet need at home. “I want to share all the Saturday Night Live stuff with my son — I’m trying to indoctrinate him with comedy — but almost none of it is appropriate for someone who is about to turn four.” The Grinch podcast allows him to play clean, he said, while also entertaining adults, especially given the guests. And what can we expect from said guests? On Gronk: “He came out of the gate playing every game, leading me down every tangent, a bucking bronco of outrageousness.” The Jonas Bros: “Three guys at once who are also a singular entity.” Hamill? “He is willing more nowadays to go down the rabbit hole on Star wars,” Johnson said. (He says he enjoys conducting the interviews more than pretty much anything else he does and when he was younger actually thought he’d go on to become a journalist.) The 36-year-old Nashville native, known for his cerebral and eerily real-seeming impressions of everyone from Joe Biden to Bob Dylan, has been dining out on his signature Trump impression in recent SNL episodes. Of course doing Trump comedy now might feel different than when Johnson first went viral with his impressions of the president during the pandemic, as Trump was winding down his term and eventually voted out of office — far from the peak of his current ICE-raiding powers. “The sands shift,” Johnson said. “It used to not be as terrifying when he had moderate people around him who were trying to stop him. Now they’re all gone and his enemies are powerless and paralyzed to stop of any it, which all comes across as super-dark — how do you find what’s funny within that?” Johnson said he had no easy answers but was simply approaching it like any character who has been mined for a long time. “I’m just trying to find new things happening with his speech and his brain and definitely the darkness, which is not easy with a guy who’s been dominating every single day for almost ten years,” he said. Those new layers were in evidence in this Sabrina Carpenter-guesting “Snack Homies” sketch several weeks ago in which in the middle of free-associating on Ukraine and Air Heads candy to future denizens of the manosphere, Trump abruptly questioned the group on whether he’d get into heaven, hinting at a (slight) vulnerability. (“Do I fit the criteria in terms of Christian and with regard to St. Peter and Pearly Gates?”) The subtlety, Johnson says, is where the secret to his impression lies. “Hamlet is not saying ‘I’m going to kill myself because I suck.’ He says he’s thinking about rivers and bones and ghosts and amid all the soliloquies you pick up on an undercurrent of really complex moral struggle.” Johnson paused, realizing how the literary example might be taken in terms of his own art. “I don’t want to call what I’m doing Shakespeare. But I am trying to find the deeper forms of Trump, who is a rich text.” As for new impression targets, Johnson said he had none immediately on deck but did offer what he looks for. “I really enjoy the ideas of playing people that fit into this soft old authority model — people in position of great power that have some ridiculous element.” Putin, perhaps, comes to mind? “My Russian accent isn’t good enough. But fortunately there are a lot of Americans who fit the mold.”
