What's Next for Some of Donald Trump's Most Famous Impersonators? 'I'm Done'
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Brad Barket/Getty; J-L Cauvin/YouTube From left: Anthony Atamanuik and J-L Cauvin, both as Donald Trump
Donald Trump is out of the White House, he's been booted from social media in the wake of the U.S. Capitol attack and he's fading from many headlines.
The cottage industry making comedy out of his much-discussed presidency may well be winding down, too, according to some of his most prominent impersonators.
Some of those performers have been toning down their takes on Trump, 74, in recent months or have simply abandoned their acts all together.
"I don't have an interest in continuing Trump. I've said from the beginning: Once he's done, I'm done," says Anthony Atamanuik, the comedian and television writer whose impression spawned Comedy Central's The President's Show in 2017.
Atamanuik's lampooning of Trump landed him comedy tours, late-night TV appearances, cameos on shows like Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt and recognition from some of the industry's biggest names.
"But let's face it," the 46-year-old tells PEOPLE. "People don't want to see that anymore."
The near-universal social media ban since the deadly Capitol riots — from sites Facebook and YouTube and, especially, Twitter — left the former president largely relegated to Fox News appearances and emailed press releases while he has retreated to his private club in Florida.
Without the power of the White House, Trump's opinions also carried inherently less importance and drew less attention.
Brad Barket/Getty; Santiago Felipe/Getty Anthony Atamanuik (right) as Donald Trump (left)
His absence from the news has been widely welcomed in the comedy world, performers tell PEOPLE, even though it means his impersonators and satirists alike will need to plant their flags elsewhere.
Atamanuik's show on Comedy Central earned him widespread praise, and that success led the trained improvisor getting interviewed on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, getting deemed "the best Trump ever" by Schitt's Creek star Catherine O'Hara and booking nationwide comedy appearances where he'd perform as the loose-lipped former president.
But Atamanuik says reception to the act "absolutely waned" soon after Trump's presidency began in 2017.
"People got tired of it as it got more frightening," he sys. "People would say, 'I loved the show, but this episode was hard to watch.' And I get that. Doing him was not some torture — but the response to him is like, 'Yeah, I am bringing energy to something that sucks.' "
Other comedians who've taken on Trump said they experienced the same rise-and-fall last year, as the world's attention turned to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sarah Cooper, a former Google employee who long performed stand-up comedy on the side, landed a Netflix series last year after her viral videos lip-syncing Trump's bizarre news conferences made her an instant star.
Less than 12 months later, after the Jan. 6 Capitol attack, she told CBS Sunday Morning enough was enough.
"I think I found a way to lampoon him that was different and interesting," Cooper, 42, said. "But I think we're done. We're done, we're not going to see any more."
Sarah Cooper as Donald Trump
J-L Cauvin — another stand-up who had all but abandoned his comedy career to work at a law firm — had found a similar resurrection impersonating Trump's unfiltered style on social media.
At nearly the same time Cooper started posting her videos, Cauvin, 41, unexpectedly woke up in late March to millions of views and tens of thousands of new Twitter followers after he released a front-facing camera Trump impersonation the afternoon before.
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The comedian had done a Trump impression on The Adam Carolla Show in 2014 and he began to master the impression on a weekly podcast with a friend in 2018, speaking as the former president for 45 minutes an episode. ("Probably damaging, psychologically," he says now, laughing.)
But nothing was like the reception to his March 24, 2020, video in which he channeled Trump to challenge God to a pay-per-view fight.
"People found it funny and it changed my life," he says. "I started to milk that."
Cauvin went from 4,000 Twitter followers to more than 140,000 almost overnight. Last year "dwarfed any year I had, even as an attorney or when I was an associate at a firm," he says.
But now, "Trump has receded into the ensemble."
J-L Cauvin/YouTube; J-L Cauvin/Facebook J-L Cauvin (right) as Donald Trump (left)
Since Trump left the White House in the shadow of the Capitol attack — and amid his unprecedented second impeachment — Cauvin has appeased his newfound fans by spoofing adjacent conservative figures like MyPillow's Mike Lindell or Sen. Mitch McConnell.
But he laments his more than 15-year comedy career finally saw an unexpected boost and now some of his new followers might jump ship as he, and other comedians, distance themselves from a president much of the country can no longer stomach.
"Now the test is, no matter what I do, I'm viewed by many as a one-hit wonder," Cauvin says.
The question of whether Trump will run again in 2024 also prompts his impersonators to contemplate trotting back out their acts.
It would be a "reluctant yes," Cauvin says.
"I'd feel like I'd have to, if he ran in 2024," he says, almost shrugs with his voice over the phone. "But at the same time, it'd be like, do I really have to start doing these again? The idea of Trump running again feels exhausting."
Atamanuik hopes it never comes to that, but he argues that satirizing controversial figures like Trump is a societal necessity.
"It's as old as human nature to take anger, pain and tragedy, and figure out how to express it or repurpose it so people with shared trauma can have a moment of relief," says the What We Do In the Shadows star.
"The way I would view it as necessary is if people get scared and they need relief, but also if the world is building a person up advertently or inadvertently as a powerful autocrat or some other kind of powerful figure, it's important to spit in that figure's face," Atamanuik says.
With that in mind, he feels "uniquely positioned" to take on Trump if Trump attempted a political comeback.
He's joking, a bit, when he says: "The worst thing would be to watch some other a------ who can't do it well."
