How to Do Impressions of Famous People

Method 1 of 3: Choosing an Impression

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   Choose a celebrity with a distinctive voice or accent. It's much easier to do an accurate impression of someone with an instantly-recognizable way of speaking. While the physical side of an impression is also important, a good vocal imitation will make or break your impression. Popular celebrities for impressions include:
   • Jack Nicholson
   • John Wayne
   • Julia Child
   • Al Pacino
   • Christopher Walken
   • Sarah Palin
   • Morgan Freeman
   • George W. Bush
   • Fran Drescher
   • Judy Garland
   • Bill Cosby
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      Choose an impression that matches your physical characteristics. To do a convincing impression, it helps to pick someone you already resemble physically. Frank Calliendo does a great John Madden impression because he shares the same rotund and jolly appearance as Madden.
      • Alternatively, it can be humorous to perfect an impression of a celebrity drastically different than you physically. A tiny girl doing a convincing Chris Farley impression could be hilarious.
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      Figure out the celebrity's "viewpoint." Celebrity impressionist Jim Ross Meskimen suggests that, like an impressionist painter, the goal of the impressionist isn't to create a perfect mirror of the celebrity, but to capture the "feeling" of that celebrity.^[1] Figure out the thing that makes that celebrity unique and amplify it. A celebrity with a viewpoint is much easier to impersonate than one without.
      • Al Pacino, for example, always seems like he's about to angrily shout in some of his movies. Our impression of him as an angry person about to boil over should inform your performance.
      • Sarah Palin is known for presenting a "folksy" image of herself. Let that folksiness creep into your performance.
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      Practice your accents. If you want to do a Christopher Walken impression, it helps to be able to do a solid New York accent before attempting it. If you want to do a Julia Child accent, practice your British inflections.
      • When you become familiar with the general accents, start getting them more specific. Within the world of British-English accents, South African, Australian, Welsh, and Scottish accents are all wildly different and unique. A good voice actor can even distinguish between a Manchester and a Liverpudlian accent. Doing some study of accents will help you narrow in on the specific speech patterns of the celebrity you hope to impersonate.

   Method 2 of 3: Studying Mannerisms and Speech

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      Make a list of all the particularities of your celebrity. As you watch and listen to the person you're impersonating, keep a running list of quotes, gestures, and faces that they make. Use lots of adjectives in your list. Here, you're already creating the impression, describing them in words and translating their presence into your own voice. Use this list to start slowly working through your impression.
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      Find the "thing." George W. Bush's squint and mispronunciations are essential to an impression of him, just as a Shatner impression must involve strange pauses. A good impression is made up of both physical and vocal components that combine to give us the impression of that celebrity. Start by perfecting the "thing" and developing your impression from there.
      • Often, a celebrity will have a particular catchphrase or quote from a movie from which to start with. A good Pacino accent would be incomplete without "Say hello to my little friend" from Scarface. Even if you can't do a physical version of Pacino, yet, working out that single sentence is a good start.
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      Watch how the speech happens. Voices can be nasal, meaning that they are high pitched and whiny, or they can come from the gut, meaning that they're deeper and more mellow. Walken's voice is somewhat pinched in the back of the throat while Hulk Hogan's also comes from the throat, but is more of a growl. Where does the voice of that particular celebrity seem to be coming from? Watching the way the person talks can help you locate their voice.
      • Practice speaking from different "places" to get a feel for your own voice's range before worrying too much about sounding like the celebrity you're working on.
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      Work on one physical and one vocal characteristic at a time. It can be overwhelming to try and capture all of the quirks that make up a particular celebrity all at once. But since it's a combination of physical and vocal tics, you'll want to try and do them in union. Start with, say, Pacino's shout and the exasperated glare that he does. When you've got that down, keep working down your list.

   Method 3 of 3: Practicing Your Impression

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   Record your impression. Your voice in your head sounds different than your voice to other people. To give yourself a good idea of how you sound while doing your impression, record it on your phone or another recorded and play it back to see how you're progressing.
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   Practice in the mirror. Jim Carrey famously practiced many hours each day in front of the mirror. It's hard to know if you're overdoing it or underdoing your facial movements if you can't see what you're doing.
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   Read aloud from a book or magazine. Coming up with something to say in a given voice can be difficult. To give yourself a wealth of sentences, just read in the voice that you're working on. Vary the tempo and the emotion behind it while you read to practice the different ranges of the voice that you're trying to work out.
   • This will also help you figure out what kinds of words or phrases work well in that voice and what don't. In this way, you can start crafting a better impression.
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   Repeat what you hear on the radio. While driving, turn on the radio and repeat back what's being said or sung in the voice that you're working out. This is particularly good for impressions of singers. Doing a Britney Spears song in a Jim Morrison voice will also be humorous to reveal to your friends.
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   Keep working on it. Like playing an instrument, a good impression needs to be maintained. Don't let your Shatner get rusty. Even after you think you've got a good impression worked out, go back to it every now and then to keep the impression fresh. Consider adding dimensions to the impression. Will Ferrell's President Bush impression grew in complexity over the many years that he performed it.