There are few Americans who have had a crazier past month than Kamala Harris—but comedian Allison Reese is among them. Reese’s impression of the vice president was already a hit on social media before Harris picked up the baton from President Joe Biden, but it has blown up in a much bigger way since.
In this episode of The Last Laugh podcast, Reese talks about the wild ride she has been on as millions of followers eat up her deliciously spot-on take on the candidate’s cadence—especially her signature laugh—and the efforts she is taking not to inadvertently become a right-wing caricature. She also reveals why she wanted to impersonate Harris in her first audition for Saturday Night Live in 2019, what she made of former cast member Maya Rudolph’s very different approach to the impression, and why she believes her videos might have an even bigger political impact on TikTok than she would have had if she had been cast as Harris on SNL.
“Life has definitely gotten a lot busier,” Reese admits when I ask her what has changed for her since Harris became the Democratic presidential nominee. “I definitely have a lot more eyes on me and my work, which, as a comedian, is always a great thing. And as a middle child, it feels even better!”
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Reese’s TikTok videos, which now regularly top a million views, have already earned her big profile pieces in The New York Times and The Washington Post as well as an invitation from the Harris campaign to be among the many online content creators on the ground at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week. It’s a homecoming of sorts for Reese, who spent years performing sketch and improv in that city.
In fact, it was at a showcase audition in Chicago for Saturday Night Live in 2019 that she first attempted an impression of then-presidential primary candidate Kamala Harris. “As a half-Black woman I was like, when am I going to get the chance to try to utilize this skill set if not now?”
Reese didn’t make it past that first round—and SNL ended up bringing back former cast member Maya Rudolph to play Harris that season, a role she plans to reprise this fall.
Her newfound success has helped her come to terms with not making it onto SNL—even though she did audition once more last year. Reese says her Kamala Harris videos allow her to “reach a different audience” than the one that would have seen her on that sketch show, specifically a younger and more “impressionable” group of potential voters on TikTok.
“If SNL were to ever come knocking on my door, of course I would answer the door,” she says. But she isn’t holding her breath.
Reese’s first thought when she saw Rudolph as Harris on SNL was, “Yeah, that makes sense, given the history of that show,” comparing it to the slam dunk move of casting Tina Fey as Sarah Palin in 2008.
“She has a very good relationship with them. And she’s so f---ing good,” she adds. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. So it made sense to me.”
Especially as a woman of color in this work, I am not out to be against any other woman of color in this work, and I think that we finally have a chance to be parodying the president. That’s never happened before. That’s a big deal. That’s huge. That’s always been a white boys’ game.” She points out that even when Barack Obama was president, it was Fred Armisen, who is of Venezuelan, German, and Korean heritage, who was cast to play him on the show.
Reese also laments the fact that all of the celebrity casting over the past 15 years or so, from Alec Baldwin as Donald Trump to Jim Carrey as Biden and more, has meant fewer opportunities for SNL’s actual cast members. “It used to be, for a lot of those folks it was like, this is your launching pad to become famous,” she says. “And now it seems like you have to be kind of famous already.”
Meanwhile, Reese has just kept perfecting her impression on social media, with a special focus on Harris’ laugh, which Republicans have tried and failed to turn into a political liability for the candidate. As someone with a “unique laugh” herself, she can relate to both the desire that Harris has said she felt early in her political career to conceal it and her ultimate decision to let it flow freely.
“Laughing is horrible, that’s the worst thing anybody could do. And for a woman to do it? Put her in jail!” Reese jokes, summing up the conservative position. If undecided voters see a woman exuding “joy” and find it objectionable in some way, she thinks that says a lot more about them than it does about Harris. “News flash: Women laugh,” Reese adds. “And the women around you should laugh sometimes.”
Ahead of Harris’ big nomination acceptance speech Thursday night in Chicago, Reese is hopeful that viewers might get just a little bit of laughter from the stage.
“I wonder if she’ll allow herself to be a little silly, a little goofy, or if she’s going to just be so locked-in,” she says. “I feel like she won’t go full laugh, but I feel like she’ll allow some chuckles. She’ll allow some fun in there.”
Listen to the episode now and follow The Last Laugh on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, or wherever you get your podcasts to be the first to hear new episodes when they are released every Wednesday.
