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Alec Baldwin 'so done' playing Donald Trump on SNL

Wigging out! The actor won an Emmy Award for playing the president on the comedy show.

Headshot of Gael Cooper
Headshot of Gael Cooper
Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, and generational studies Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Gael Cooper
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Alec Baldwin's portrayal of Donald Trump has been an SNL standby.

Saturday Night Live screenshot by CNET

Alec Baldwin is ready to pass his Donald Trump wig to a new actor. Baldwin has been playing the president on Saturday Night Live since 2016, even earning an Emmy Award for the role.

But in an interview published Thursday by USA Today, Baldwin said he's moving on from the part.

"I can't imagine I would do it again," Baldwin said. "I just can't. They should find somebody who wants to do it."

Baldwin said he loved the job, but since his fifth child, son Romeo, was born in 2018, he's tried to work less and spend more time with his family.

"SNL just crushes my weekends, and now weekends are going to become much more precious to me because that's time with my kids," he said.

Baldwin said he didn't know who should take over the role, but praised the work of former SNL cast member Darrell Hammond as Trump, and also mentioned Anthony Atamanuik, who played Trump on Comedy Central's The President Show.