When Jay Pharoah, comedian and cast member of NBC’s Saturday Night Live, “crashed” the Pepsi Spire fountain recently at the Arby’s restaurant in New York City—through virtual technology the comedian actually appeared on the machine’s digital touchscreen—tourists and locals went bananas. No surprise since Pharoah has developed something of a cult following, thanks to his spot-on impersonations of President Obama, Jay-Z, Kanye West and Ben Carson, not to mention his super-popular standup routine. The day of the video shoot, to the surprise of some pretty shocked soda drinkers, Pharoah challenged some to dance-offs and even serenaded a few others. Read on as he talks about teaming up with Pepsi, a shelter dog he has his eye on and what it was like to meet President Obama.
It must have been hilarious shooting this video.
Everything was fun and organic. I was coming up with stuff off the top of my head, but when people walked away, I wasn’t surprised. I was like ‘hey they’re foreign. They don’t know what I’m talking about.’ The entire shoot took about eight hours, but it was so fun. I got to mess with people the whole time.
You seem so energetic—are you always this way?
I have this natural energy. In fact, I’m supposed to go to this shelter and look at a half Rottweiler, half Lab puppy I’ve fallen in love with. I’ve had two dogs and it’s a lot of sacrifice and a lot of poop, but I need a dog as big as my energy. That’s another reason Pepsi picked me for this video. They were like ‘Jay Pharoah has good energy. He’s fun.’
How do you keep up with SNL, doing stand-up and social media, especially when your Facebook feed feels like you really do treat your fans as friends.
That’s the key and the ticket to social media. You want people to feel like they’re everywhere you are. It’s about that interaction. What you’re doing is inviting people to your home. You want people to think ‘I want to drink with this guy.’
I’ve noticed that you thank people, you retweet, you’re engaged.
Social media takes time but I feel like your fans are the people who make you. And if you mess up—and I’m not saying I will because I don’t plan to—but the folks you’re nice to are the ones who will build you back up. It’s funny, I have 60,000 or so followers on Facebook but it has gone up dramatically last month because of that Weekend Update piece where I did impressions of nine comedians. People were like ‘oh my God,’ but I was like ‘yo, I’ve been doing this for five years on the show.’
Was it crazy meeting President Obama after doing so many impressions of him?
It was surreal being in the Oval Office and looking around and saying ‘you’ve come a long way to be in the same position where so many sex scandals happened.’
Did President Obama ask you to do your version of him?
He said ‘you must feel old doing an impression of me,’ but he was smiling and he started laughing and hit me on the shoulder. He approved of it. The Secret Service guys were snickering—they were trying to keep it down. You don’t want to mess up an impression of the most powerful man in the world. He approved—I won’t get offed.
Anyone you’ve always hoped to impersonate on SNL?
I have a lot. A lot are white impressions. Like Leonardo DiCaprio. I’d love to do a black Leo DiCaprio. I’m trying to figure it out. What would he win, a BET or NAACP Image Award or something?
How is SNL different from stand-up?
SNL is more you gotta be censored. You come see me in a live show and you’re like whoa. It’s boom boom boom. It’s raw and authentic and I give you more of myself. A lot of folks don’t know me past my impressions, but at a show this weekend in Columbus, Ohio, this guy came up to me and told me he’d seen Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy and that my show was the one of the best he’s seen. This new material is so real, so me. I feel I’m doing what I need to do.
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