Darrell Hammond, known on Saturday Night Live as former President Bill Clinton, the Reverend Jesse Jackson and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, performed to a crowded Blackman Auditorium, at what he called Northwestern University — students forgave him because he was suffering from a cold and was on Sudafed.

For winter weekend, Hammond’s performance last Saturday night did not fill the entire auditorium, but those in attendance were privvy to his famous impersonations.

Hammond said, “everyone has at least one unique thing that they do with their teeth,” and they speak in at least five different tones.

“Every person speaks in at least five different ways, depending upon how many people are in the room and who they are … if it’s the paperboy, or someone who is coming to collect, it’s different from when you’re laying next to your boyfriend, or if it’s your professor,” Hammond said. “So, you try and find enough

Lorne Michaels, the executive producer of SNL, is the true test of Hammond’s talent. According to Hammond, Michaels will come to him the day before the show tapes and ask him to do an impersonation of someone in recent headlines.

“I have four different televisions that are all running tape at the same time,” Hammond said. “I have hundreds and hundreds of hours of cumbersome tape in my New York apartment; it’s just videotapes and books.”

Hammond, who lives in Brooklyn, covered topics such as the war in Iraq, by saying “CNN needs this war,” to showcase their new theme song; how he feels bad or guilty when he’s watching the Anna Nicole Show, and he sprinkled his stand-up with impersonations from Al Gore, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Regis Philbman, Donald Rumsfeld, Chris Matthews and Richard Dreyfus.

Hammond, despite his cold, took a few minutes to sit down and talk with The News about how he got to where he is today and what it’s like to be on SNL.

The Northeastern News: When did you get your big break?

Darrell Hammond: The first thing I did when I started, I heard that Disney sometimes had open auditions for their theme park in Orlando. I thought I’d like to audition for that, and I put together as many voices as I could think of and I ended up doing that also for Sea World. At Disney, I would do vegetables, singing vegetables.

I sent my tapes to a radio station and they hired me to do voices for their radio show in the morning for no money, I mean barely minimum wage, but then I decided to try stand-up, then the voices really came in handy — still no money. I just started driving a car around America, but I was doing what I wanted, I was happy.

I didn’t stop doing stand-up full time until I was 33-34 years old, but then pretty washed up, but I was working a club in New York and I had one line in my act as Bill Clinton, and Phil Hartman had retired. So, they said ‘this guy sounds like Bill Clinton pretty much, let’s give him a shot,’ and that got me in. I auditioned for that show five times. I had auditioned for that show two years ago and they rejected me, it seems like every job I’ve gotten I got rejected first. I’ve been to hundreds of auditions. I remember Al Pacino said one night that the key to his success was able to start the second ten years of his career with nothing to show for the first ten. I mean this is f*cking Al Pacino, and this ain’t no f*cking bum auditioning, just fabulous. [Casting agents] are going to New York and getting waitresses and waiters that are auditioning like crazy good. In New York it comes down to the f*cking freckle on your face.

The News: What was your first impression?

Hammond: The first impression I ever did was Popeye; he used to skat sing going over to Olive Oil’s. I literally sat down and figured out all the vowell and consanant substitutions and basically he would go, ski di bi dip, and then it went …

The News: How come you’re not in NY now?

Hammond: We do 20 fresh shows, and we have our off weeks. So, I’ll be going back on Monday, and I’ll be doing 2 weeks in a row, and one week off and then three weeks in a row … I do rest, I sleep normal sleeping patterns. I still like to work, perform and there were so many years when I didn’t get a job, and so now that I have this job, I find it kind of hard to turn it down. Colleges have energy and students react like that (snaps fingers).

The News: At the show, you said that you can’t impersonate women and that you really wish you could. If you could impersonate someone, who would it be?

Hammond: In heaven, I would do Tina Turner, she’s one of the most colorful, amazing people.

The News: Do you have the legs to do it?

Hammond: I would need the legs too, how does she stay like this? She likes to dance at her house, she puts on records and dances to them. Oh, my God, it’s genius. You have fun while you exercise, who would have thought? She was rehearsing in a men’s shirt, like buttoned down, high heels and men’s underwear. Well, I thought it was men’s underwear until I was way up close, but I didn’t discover that until I was way up close, because I love her so much. You couldn’t see her legs, and this camera that swivels moved towards me and I ducked and I looked up, and her legs were like unbelievable and so strong and so perfect. How can any woman be in that great of shape? If I was in heaven, that’s what I would do.