-It's a pleasure to have you on the show. I'm a big fan.
Congrats on -- You've been knocking it
out of the park on "Saturday Night Live."
-Oh, your words, you know. -It is, but, yeah.
But you've actually been crushing it.
-Thanks, man. -I remember when you first
got cast, and Higgins and Lorne were like,
"You've got to see this kid. He's unbelievable."
I was like, "Oh, I can't wait." 'Cause I love impressions.
The first -- The first scene anyone ever saw of you,
you're in the cold open.
-I'm in the cold open of my first episode of the show,
and I just walked out in full Biden makeup.
-Yeah.
-Which I think I knew for about --
I had known at that point for about 24 hours
that I was going to do that.
And it was very surreal. -When I was on the show
and just starting out, I was not in all of the shows.
I was barely in --
I would call my mom like, "I didn't make it into the show.
Don't watch. Or -- Don't get excited.
I'm in the opening credits, but then I'm not in show."
-I fully was like, "Mom, Dad. Just hang out, watch me.
I'm going to wait in the wings. I'm going to learn the ropes."
-Yeah. -And then, like, Friday night,
they're like, "We're putting you in full Biden makeup.
You need to riff in front of the camera
so we can make sure that we can do this.
By the way, you are doing it and you have to go out now.
It's actually Saturday at midnight right now.
You have to go right now."
I had no time to think about it. I just jumped in.
And I was like, "Alright. Let's find this guy.
Let's find the voice."
-Yeah. How do you find Biden? Did you have him?
-Well, you know, he's a mixture of a few different impressions.
I did have an Owen Wilson.
And Biden has this, like --
You know in Owen Wilson movies
he's always giving, like, a pump-up speech
halfway through to another character?
Like -- [as Owen Wilson] "I saw you up there. You're so great!
I thought, wow, I could do that! We're gonna do that.
We're gonna get everybody together.
We're gonna move forward. Good jobs."
-Wow.
-[Normal voice] So he has that pump-up guy.
-Yeah.
-And then he does like -- And then he's got
Nicolas Cage vibes sometimes.
Like, he's really proud of himself.
You know, Nicolas Cage has that kind of voice like...
[As Cage] "You know, I am proud of Build Back Better.
I...just want to make signature policies.
And it's -- it's -- this is gonna be good for everybody.
If you don't like it, that's too tough."
-Wow.
-"We got to protect our Bill of Rights.
We're gonna steal the Bill of Rights."
[ Laughter ]
[Normal voice] And then you finish it off with that --
that irascible Biden who's like --
You know, a voter is like, "You're taking my guns away."
And he's like, "Oh, n-nobody said
I was taking your guns away!
No one's gonna ever -- I never said that.
[ Laughter ]
I never said I was gonna do that."
Then you just mix it all together.
[As Biden] "It's not about yesterday. It's about today.
Moving forward, bring people together, good union jobs.
Emissions. Lower emissions.
We're gonna be competitive, competitive with everybody."
[ Laughter and applause ]
-Wow. -[Normal voice] That's Biden.
That's fantastic, buddy.
-He's just three guys, you know? -That's fantastic.
I know that you're --
Was it always your goal to be on "Saturday Night Live"?
-I always wanted to do it.
I would stay up late, sort of sneak some viewings of it,
even though we had church in the morning.
I'd be like, "Yeah, I'm old enough to watch this content."
-You brought me something that you have hanging in your office.
-Okay. Yeah. So my brother came and visited "SNL."
I was too young to come with him,
but he got an NBC page to hand him a sheet of paper.
They didn't get into the show.
They were in the stand-by line. They didn't make it.
So they just harassed cast members on their way home.
And they got me this.
It's signed by Fred Armisen and Bill Hader
and Jason Sudeikis.
And Fred here says, "Hi, Austin. Keep writing."
My family calls me Austin. -Wow.
-"Stay tough" from Bill Hader.
"Best of luck" from scribble, scribble, scribble.
I think that's Sudeikis.
-Yeah. This is an NBC page --
I remember this -- actually this paper.
-Pre-smartphone. -Telephone message. Yeah.
-And now this is hanging up in my office,
and I can just text Fred Armisen whenever I --
I have a very specific "SNL," you know, quandary.
Like, "Is it normal to have a texting marriage argument
while I'm in full Lindsey Graham makeup?
Is this a normal feeling to have?"
-The "SNL" questions you have.
I got to say, the first time I think I saw you
was you did an impression of Donald Trump,
which I think is the greatest impression of Donald Trump.
-Oh, wow. -It's such an interesting take,
and you did it before anyone was doing this.
-Aw, thank you. -And I go, "What is going on?"
How did you figure out you could do that?
-Well, let me just say that I love that my fate
is bound to this man, you know?
I love -- Just any time he does something,
a relative will be like, "What'd you think of that?"
And I'd be like, "What a guy!"
-"I had nothing to do with this guy.
I'm doing an impression of this guy."
-Whew. -A lot of people do it --
[as Trump] "They do the high voice -- You do the thing or whatever."
-There's, like, you know --
He's been around for a long time,
so everybody has their take on him.
But I -- My proudest moment
is that he called me out in a speech.
I don't know if it's a proud moment to be mentioned
in a Trump rally, but he was just like --
You know how he has that stream-of-consciousness thing
where he bounces around to a bunch of different topics at once?
He was calling somebody in Washington a liar.
Then he went -- [as Trump] "He's a liar. The liar.
The liar. Jon Lovitz. Jon Lovitz.
The show's not as good anymore. It's not as good anymore.
We don't watch the show, but they got a new guy doing me.
I hear he's pretty good. I hear he's pretty good.
[ Laughter and applause ]
They got a new guy doing me. He's probably pretty good.
We don't know his name. We don't watch the show."
-He's talking about someone who's a liar, and he --
"The kid's pretty good."
-He loved the liar bit. You know what I mean?
If he had just been like -- "Garth and Kat.
We love Garth and Kat." [ Laughter ]
"Remember Nick Burns? We love Nick Burns."
-Oh, Nick Burns, yeah. -"Nick Burns, he did computer,
and he was very good with iMac and with computer."
[ Laughter ] -Oh, my goodness.
It's unbelievable, buddy.
-"SNL" fan Donald Trump. -Now, I saw you.
We were in the halls, getting our COVID test
the first time I saw you.
And I go, "Hey, you're doing great in the show, buddy.
Congratulations."
And we were talking quickly, 6 feet away, through masks,
and you were like --
I go, "You gotta come on the show because I'm a fan."
You go, "I'd love to. Maybe we can talk about Dylan."
-Oh yeah. -'Cause I know you're a fan
of Bob Dylan. -I know you're a fan
of Bob Dylan. I'm a fan of Bob Dylan.
-I love Bob Dylan. Did you get the new book?
-I've got the new book, "Philosophy of Modern Song."
What you've really got to get is the audio book.
'Cause if you ever listen to him on Sirius XM,
he's like, "Theme Time Radio on Sirius XM.
You're listening to Bob Dylan.
Today's theme is flowers, hydrangeas, chrysanthemums."
And, like, the whole audio book for his "Philosophy --"
-I don't know if I've ever heard anyone
do a speaking impression of Bob Dylan.
-You should listen because his voice is a little terrifying.
[ Laughter ]
-Is there an era of Dylan that you like doing the most?
-There's too many to pick.
I love the modern --
"Rough and Rowdy Ways," the last record, so good.
So good. -It was fantastic.
-But the Bob Dylan that we love
is the Greenwich Village Bob Dylan.
-Would you be up for showing us your Bob Dylan impressions?
-Yeah, I could walk you through some.
-Through the decades? [ Cheers and applause ]
-Yeah, sure. If you insist.
-With the holidays coming up, maybe could we hear
Bob Dylan singing "Jingle Bells"?
-Oh, yeah, sure. Yeah, we could
maybe start it off with, like, that folky
Greenwich Village Bob Dylan.
Here, let me get this harmonica here.
This will be helpful.
[ As Bob Dylan] ♪ Jingle bells, jingle bells ♪
♪ Jingle all the way ♪
♪ Oh, what fun it is to ride ♪
Heh-heh.
[ Normal voice ] He's always giggling on these songs.
[ As Dylan ] Heh-heh-heh. ♪ What fun it is to ride ♪
Heh-heh.
I think Calvin Coolidge said that.
[ Harmonica plays ]
[ Cheers and applause ]
It's like, "Some professionalism, please, Bob."
-But then he did -- how about the crooner,
when he did a crooner, kind of Sinatra --
-The "Lay, Lady, Lay"... -The National Skyline.
-...National Skyline, Bob Dylan.
He had a completely different voice all of a sudden.
-Yes, he had...
-It's like... ♪ Jingle bells, jingle bells ♪
♪ Jingle all the way ♪
♪ Oh, what fun it is to r-i-i-ide ♪
♪ In a one-horse open sleigh ♪
[ Cheers and applause ]
Like, "Why are you singing like that?
We don't even need you to sing. You're Bob Dylan.
-No, you already have your own voice.
But he created a new voice.
But then he did the whole rock-band tour,
like, the Rolling Thunder.
-And he's, like, touring all over the world.
He's filling arenas.
He's got the Rolling Thunder Revue band.
That's my favorite Dylan because he's unintelligible.
He's just screaming.
♪♪
Yeah, here we go.
♪♪
[ As Bob Dylan ] ♪ Oh, dashing through the snow ♪
♪ Ooh, in a one-horse open sleigh ♪
♪ Over the fields we go ♪
♪ Laughing, laughing all the way ♪
♪ With your bells on your bobtails ring ♪
♪ And you're making spirits bright ♪
♪ What fun it is to ride and sing ♪
♪ On a sleighing song tonight ♪
[ Cheers and applause ]
[ Normal voice ] I can hear you, Bob.
I'm two towns over.
I can hear you. -He can hear you.
You don't need the microphone there.
How about '90s Dylan?
-'90s Dylan, he had a big comeback.
"Time Out of Mind."
He said, "I'm never gonna sell out.
I'll never do an ad."
And then he did a Victoria's Secret ad.
[ Laughter ]
And he's just singing like a Disney vulture.
[ Laughter ]
He's singing like he crawled out of a French crypt or something.
And the songs have this moody sexiness to them.
[ Slow, creepy music plays ]
[ As Bob Dylan ] ♪ Jingle bells, jingle bells ♪
[ Laughter ]
♪ Jingle all the way ♪
-Yeah. -♪ Oh, what fun it is to ride ♪
♪ In a one-horse open sleigh ♪
-Oh, my God!
[ Cheers and applause ] Come on, now.
James Austin Johnson, everyone!
Catch an all new "Saturday Night Live"
this weekend on NBC and Peacock.
We'll be right back with a performance from "& Juliet."
Stick around, everybody. [ Cheers and applause ]
-[ As Bob Dylan ] ♪ Jingle all the way ♪
-♪ Oh, what fun ♪ -♪ Oh, what fun ♪
-♪ It is to ride ♪ -♪ It is to ride ♪
-♪ In a one-horse open sleigh ♪ -♪ In a one-horse open sleigh ♪
-♪ Oh, won't you jingle the bells ♪
-♪ Jingle bells ♪ -♪ Oh, jingle the bells ♪
-♪ Oh, jingle all the way ♪ -♪ Jingle all the way ♪
-♪ Oh, what fun it is to ride ♪
♪ In a one-horse open sleigh ♪