With Matt Damon taking on the role Brett Kavanaugh, who else has proved most successful in the show’s A-list White House?

As Saturday Night Live prepared to air its 44th season premiere last weekend, the question on viewers minds wasn’t if they would parody Brett Kavanaugh’s contentious Senate testimony from earlier in the week, but who would play the embattled frat boy turned would-be supreme court justice.

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While SNL’s regular cast has settled comfortably into their recurring roles as members of Donald Trump’s (played by honorary cast member Alec Baldwin, probably in perpetuity) revolving administration over the past two years – with, among others, Beck Bennett as Vice-President Mike Pence, Aidy Bryant as press secretary Sarah Sanders, and utility player Kate McKinnon as Kellyanne Conway, Rudy Giuliani, Betsy DeVos and Jeff Sessions – there is always the expectation that a celebrity will pop up to embody whatever soon-to-be-infamous individual gets sucked into the president’s orbit next.

With that in mind, here are some of most notable Trump-era celebrity cameos SNL has given us so far:

Melissa McCarthy as Sean Spicer

Undoubtedly, Melissa McCarthy’s unexpected turn as Sean Spicer proved the most popular example of a non-cast member playing someone from the cabinet. Her cross-gender performance (enhanced by surprisingly convincing prosthetics) as the combative, gum-chewing former press secretary – whose ineffectual lying, constant fumbling and poor sartorial choices made him a marked man from day one – drew massive attention and praise. According to inside accounts at the time, it may well have been one of the key factors that ultimately cost Spicer his job.

Popular as McCarthy was in the role, with Spicer long gone, she has since confirmed that she’s done playing him.

John Goodman as Rex Tillerson

Fellow perennial host John Goodman joined Alec Baldwin during 2016’s Christmas episode to play silver-haired oil magnate and then incoming secretary of state Rex Tillerson. Goodman’s gruff, dismissive Tillerson is shown as having little time or patience for the aloof president-elect, coming off as the power-behind-the-throne alongside his business partner/buddy Vladimir Putin (Bennett).

It’s a testament to the volatility of the Trump presidency that the next time Goodman turned up as Tillerson (joined by Bill Hader’s Anthony Scaramucci and Fred Armisen’s Michael Wolff) over a year later, post toilet-seat firing, he was portrayed not as a power broker, but a broken man striped not only of hist power, but also his dignity: “It’s just crazy how one day you’re the CEO of Exxon, a billion-dollar company, and the next day you get fired by a man who used to sell steaks in the mail!”

Scarlett Johansson as Ivanka Trump

The first daughter and presidential adviser had actually been played by a couple of different guest stars, including Emily Blunt and Margot Robbie, before Johansson took on the role and made it her own, most memorably in the scathing perfume commercial parody Complicit (“I bet when she watches Titanic she thinks she’s Rose … sorry girl, you’re Billy Zane”) which, according to former Trump confidante Omarosa Manigault Newman, had a devastating effect on the real Ivanka Trump.

Jimmy Fallon as Jared Kushner



To supplement Johansson’s Ivanka Trump, SNL tapped former cast member and current Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon to play Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner. Taking up as his go-to costume the flack vest/blazer combo that has caused Kushner an endless amount of ridicule since he was first photographed wearing it while touring Iraq in April of 2017, Fallon’s “Kushball” is an alternately silent and Mickey-Mouse voiced patsy, all fashion and no function.

Bill Hader as Anthony Scaramucci

Even by the standards of this administration, Anthony Scaramucci – the Wall Street hustler who lasted 11 days as the White House communications director before his profane candor got him axed – was especially ridiculous. Parodying a man who might as well have walked straight out of an SNL sketch in the first place seemed like a pointless gesture, but former cast member Bill Hader, always adept at playing high-wire oddballs, managed to do a good job of it. Hader’s Scaramucci – or “Mooch”, as he insists on being called – is, in his own words, basically “human cocaine”. It’s a simple depiction, but one that Hader makes memorable.

Ben Stiller as Michael Cohen and Robert De Niro as Robert Mueller



Aside from McCarthy as Sean Spicer, Ben Stiller’s portrayal of Michael Cohen, Trump’s former personal lawyer and recent admitted felon, has proved the most memorable recurring guest spot by a celebrity in the role of a Trump ally (turned enemy). His similar facial features and dead-on vocal imitation make him singularly perfect in the role, as does his innate ability to switch between hostile and sympathetic, manic and pathetic.

In two of the three sketches in which Stillers has appeared as Cohen, he’s been joined by his Meet the Parents co-star Robert De Niro, as special counsel Robert Mueller. De Niro is a fitting choice for Mueller, given his vocal opposition to Trump, but unlike Stiller he doesn’t attempt to do a convincing impression of the president’s arch-nemesis, instead playing him as his character from Meet the Parents, replete with catchphrases and physical gestures from the franchise.

Martin Short as Dr Harold Bornstein

The second of the three aforementioned Cohen sketches featured the most celebrity cameos of any Trump segment to date, including Stiller as Cohen, Johansson as Ivanka, Fallon as Kushner, Stormy Daniels as herself and a brief turn from Martin Short (disguised but still distinguishable in a long wig and fake beard) as Trump’s eccentric personal physician, Dr Harold Bornstein. Short steals the scene with his over-the-top antics, giving us a Jerry Lewis-inspired interpretation of the shady doctor.

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Matt Damon as Brett Kavanaugh

The answer to the question on viewer’s minds before last week’s season opener – who will they get to play Brett Kavanaugh? – ended up being Matt Damon. Damon was all shouts and sniffles as he sparred loudly with Democratic senators, showed off his decades-old calendars and talked about his love of beer. An entertaining enough performance on its own, there was nothing specific to it, and it falls on the lower end of memorable celebrity portrayals of Trump associates. Also, the writing took pains to avoid mentioning the disturbing allegations of sexual assault leveled against Kavanaugh, which is understandable, but which also made the sight of Damon chugging beer while delivering the iconic “Live from New York!” introduction feel a little gross.

With the new season just starting out, and with the Trump administration still embroiled in dozens of political and legal fires, expect many, if not all, of these actors to reprise their roles, as well as a handful of new guest spots.