Meet Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton Impersonators Who Make a Living by Playing the Presidential Candidates

Teresa Barnwell and John Di Domenico play the presidential candidates full time.

ByABC News
October 31, 2016, 1:38 PM

— -- Alec Baldwin may be playing Donald Trump on "Saturday Night Live" this season, but Teresa Barnwell has been Hillary Clinton for the past 23 years.

Barnwell is an impersonator, making a living by performing as Trump’s fellow presidential candidate.

“It all started for me back in 1992. That was the first time that somebody told me that I resembled Hillary Clinton,” Barnwell told ABC News’ “Nightline.” “I met other impersonators, networked with them, met some of the Bill Clinton impersonators, and it just started to gradually snowball.”

Her resemblance to Clinton is so uncanny that Barnwell quit her job in advertising to impersonate her full-time.

“I do try to dress in the manner that Hillary dresses, of course. The pantsuit is the key costume! I do watch how she is wearing her hair and I try to imitate that as much as I can,” Barnwell explained. “She apparently is having a lot of her clothes specially made just for her, so it makes it a little difficult to try to find things exactly like what she is wearing.”

Barnwell says she is voting for Clinton and looks to her as a role model.

“It’s not easy working in the entertainment industry. For every one person who believes in you, there are probably 10 people that are working against you or trying to pull you down or being negative,” Barnwell said. “So when I get discouraged, I look at Hillary and think, ‘I don’t go through anything close to what she goes through.’ So I kind of think, ‘OK, if she can get up and do this every day so can I.’ She has it a lot worse than I do. But she gets plugging away. She never gives up. She never quits.”

Like Barnwell, John Di Domenico works as an impersonator. He’s portrayed Trump for the past 12 years.

“His voice is the hardest. It’s a very, I do a lot of voices, his is the most difficult. And not just that, in the last year his voice has changed, more guttural. He’s doing this thing where he is straining his voice because he is speaking so much, I have to tell you. He is constricting his vocal chords on the end of sentences,” Di Domenico told “Nightline.”

Di Domenico wears makeup and a wig to help him get more into character. He says the key to doing a good Trump impression is attitude.

“I think with him more than any other impression or impersonation, it’s really the attitude. It’s coming in totally confident and being, ‘You’re it. You’re No. 1.’ That’s really important. It’s actually kind of affected me personally,” said Di Domenico. “It actually helps me be more confident, because his confidence is so, oh so big. I have to carry that through.”

Di Domenico didn't say whom he is voting for but said that his income from impersonating Trump has doubled since last year.

“All I can say is if he wins, I’m going to have a very busy four years,” said Di Domenico.

Watch the full story on ABC News' "Nightline" TONIGHT at 12:35 a.m. ET.

Related Topics