No two paths to showbiz success are alike, but good luck replicating Sarah Cooper’s: “There was a crazy president who was elected after 40 years of conning people and cheating on his wife,” the Donald Trump impersonator describes of the stage for her meteoric rise.
How Sarah Cooper Took Over TikTok (+ Took Down Trump Along the Way) What performance should every actor see?
Not thinking about it too much, I’d say, for me, Jack Nicholson in “The Shining.”
Do you have an audition horror story you can share?
It’s a pretty recent one. It was supposed to be a general meeting and it turned into a cold read audition. And I was in this general meeting, and it was a few minutes of conversation. I thought, OK, great, it’s over. And then all of a sudden it was like, “Well, let me just email you something and let’s read it together.” I spent almost an hour doing this, just working my butt off, sweating—I’m not even remotely prepared for this—taking direction, doing it over and over again. And then afterward, what happened was the person said, “I’m so excited to work with you on this.” And I thought it meant I got it. But he meant he was excited to have done this hour with me. And then I literally never heard from him. I felt mortified.
What’s the wildest thing you ever did to get a job?
Oh, God—dated a producer. Do not do that, ladies, it’s not worth it. Trust me. You don’t need a producer to get a [job as] an extra. I literally could never sleep my way up because I would do stupid things like sleep with the producer to get to be an extra in a film.
What advice would you give your younger self?
I would say stop being so obsessed with what other people like and start paying attention to what you like.
How did you get your SAG-AFTRA card?
I got it on my Netflix special. I’d been struggling, like, “Oh, gotta be in SAG,” for years and years and years. And it really just happened, and it’s really crazy. You try so hard for so long and then all of a sudden it just lands in your lap. That’s how it happened for me, and I just can’t even explain it. People are like, “What’s the secret to your success?” Well, there was a crazy president who was elected after 40 years of conning people and cheating on his wife. There’s no step-by-step process for anything that happened for me.
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