Playing Donald Trump is taking its toll on Alec Baldwin—week after week contorting his face, playing a vile caricature of the president who is currently making a mockery of America. He says he doesn't want to do it much longer. But, his Saturday Night Live performance, with its popularity, has become a necessary pinprick in the side of President Trump. It has rejuvenated a stagnant SNL, and it has become a late-career success for Baldwin.
And though he's one of the new president's harshest critics, and one of the most visible people currently turning the man into a national joke, Baldwin feels bad for Trump, as he told Chris Jones for a new cover story in The Atlantic:
I honestly think you can mock all of these people, Democrat or Republican. It doesn't matter who is in that office; they all open themselves up—some more than others, and in a different way than others. But because of who he is, and what he brings and doesn't bring in all ways to that job, Trump has opened himself up to a heretofore unseen level of this. He is being mocked on a level that just exceeds anything you've ever seen. In a way, and I say this very sincerely, I really feel sorry for him. Because here's a man—you look at anybody in life, where you see someone set out to do something, and he will achieve the exact opposite. He will have achieved the exact opposite of what he believed he was going to achieve when he set out to do this in the first place.
In other words: Sad!
