(Amber Renee Dixon) He can channel more than 30 different celebrities, including the one he's best known for, President Donald Trump.

John Di Domenico is our guest this week on Nevada Week In Person.

♪♪ -Support for Nevada Week In Person is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt and other supporters.

-Welcome to Nevada Week In Person.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

A born entertainer, he overcame a speech impediment on his way to becoming an award-winning impersonator.

In 2004 is when he first stepped into one of his most famous roles, impersonating then businessman Donald Trump.

His careful study of Trump's vocal patterns, nasal placement, and accent all paid off and then some when the star of the Celebrity Apprentice decided to run for President.

John Di Domenico, actor, writer, impersonator, and MC, thank you for joining Nevada Week In Person.

-Hi, Amber.

Thank you for having me here.

This is great.

-And our viewers-- Yes?

-This seems familiar for some reason.

-Yes.

I was going to say some of our viewers may recognize you from your most recent appearance here as the host of our live pledge event back in December.

You helped raise a ton of money for this station to fill the void of the federal funding cuts under the Trump administration, the guy who you impersonate.

-Right.

It all comes around.

It all comes together, and I was so honored to do it.

And I was so grateful to be chosen, because this is the land of hosts, comedians, celebrities.

They could have chosen a lot of people.

But they went with me, and I was so grateful.

-You're talking about here in Las Vegas?

-Here in Las Vegas.

There's a wealth of people who could have done that, and they chose me.

-But did you see during the pledge there were performers who talked about how great they think you are?

Carrot Top couldn't stop singing your praises.

-He's a good friend, and I've appeared in his show a number of times.

And the very first time I got that call from him, Hey, do you want to come do a five-minute set in my show?

I was like... [wheezing] [laughter] One of the things, I'm so grateful to be on this show and to do the pledge, right, but I love Las Vegas.

What brought me here was the weather.

I was-- This is what happened: I was doing a weeklong national sales meeting in San Diego, and it was February.

Now, imagine flying back to New York in February.

It's cold.

It's rainy.

It's industrial.

Everyone has their hand out, Do you need a ride?

Do you need this?

Do you need that?

And when I landed back in New York, I was like, What am I doing?

I can't-- I just left San Diego.

It was beautiful and sunny.

And I thought, You know what?

That's it.

I'm moving.

I'm moving to San Diego.

And then you find out how much everything cost in San Diego.

And a friend of mine worked for Cirque, and she was one of the wardrobe people, and she said, Have you ever thought about moving to Las Vegas?

You're here all the time.

You do five shows a year.

And I said, Excuse me?

Las Vegas, really?

I'm a New York trained actor.

And she was like, Take it easy.

Take it easy.

When are you here next?

And I said, I'm there in about two weeks to do a show.

She gave me a day and a half.

Tack on a day and a half on the back end.

I'm going to show you around.

And she did.

And I was like, Oh, wow.

Because when you only stay on the Strip... -Right.

You have a very narrow view.

-Narrow view.

And when someone takes you to Henderson and takes you to Summerlin and shows you around, it's like, oh, this is a real-- This is a real city.

I mean, you get every benefit of New York.

You get every benefit of Chicago.

You get all the benefits of these places.

But yet one of the beauties of Las Vegas is it is always growing-- the music scene, the comedy scene, the theater scene.

That is such a great thing about it.

You could come-- Someone could move here tomorrow and say, I want to make this a theater town.

And within five years, they can do that.

And a friend of mine, Mark Shunock, who we all know, he came here after me.

He came from a Broadway show.

He was doing Rock of Ages, and he said, You know what?

I want to take something they do in New York, Mondays Dark.

And he has blown that out and has raised literally millions of dollars.

And this is one of the, one of the reasons I love this town, because Mark called me in early on.

I got to do a bunch of shows doing my characters.

-Yes.

-I got to meet all the other performers, all the magicians--that's another group--the musicians, the singers, the production people.

And this is a great place.

If you want to get networked and connected with people and you want to participate and elevate the city, that will happen.

-I did see you in a YouTube performance.

Well, it's on YouTube from Mondays Dark just last year.

You were President Donald Trump.

And to be clear, you were not President Trump during the live pledge.

You were yourself.

-No.

I was myself, something I want to do more of.

-Yeah.

When did that happen where you realized, I want to be me?

-It was about four years ago.

And I could see the change in the industry.

It's tougher to do characters.

I certainly do impressions.

But to do the characters, less and less people know who a lot of these older characters are, because my audiences are corporate audiences and they're getting-- they're getting younger.

And at the same time, I thought, you know what?

I've been so grateful, so grateful, so lucky.

I mean, I got to travel around the world doing this.

But I thought, you know what?

It's time to be me.

It's time to take the mask off and talk about the things that I want to talk about, about the human voice and all these other things.

And to do that, I need to be myself.

And what I realized initially was, wow, these characters have become a little bit of a crutch.

-Well, I wondered that about President Trump.

Have you noticed the demand for that role change?

-Oh, 100-- Yes.

-How?

-100%.

Well, I'll give you an example: He announced in May of 2015.

I was one of the few people doing Trump full makeup.

My wigs were made in New York by Bob Kelly who did all the Broadway shows.

They were super expensive.

And, you know, I was wearing a real Trump tie, real Trump suit.

-And you do your own makeup?

-I do my own makeup.

And I love being authentic, because that's my theater training.

I want to be as exact as possible.

So he announced, and all of a sudden-- If you went online, I was one of the few people doing it.

And all of a sudden, it was this insane ride.

And then when 2016 kicked in, the election year, I was literally going around the world.

I was appearing on British television, Australian television, shooting commercials, getting TV offers, film offers.

I was flown out to LA to meet the studio heads.

All these things just was really, truly amazing.

Then 2017 he gets into office.

The first thing he does is the Muslim ban, and all of a sudden all my corporate work just vanishes because they have their international companies and all.

And then a lot of the policies started kicking in.

So my team of agents said, Okay, we need to reposition.

We can't be working publicly held companies.

And there's plenty of private work, too.

And you know, events and things around.

-Right.

So then movies and shows have been where you're most utilized as Trump?

-Yes.

-But not corporate events?

-Yeah, unless it's a company owned by somebody who is pro-Trump.

-Okay.

-We get a lot of those.

-Do you?

You do.

-Yeah.

-Because I could see some supporters of the President thinking that you are mocking him.

-You would think.

But I've done MAGA events for MAGA Congresspeople and Senators.

They bring me in, because here's why: I am not mocking him.

I'm a satirist because my earliest influence was David Frye.

And if you don't know who he is, look him up.

He was just an amazing impressionist comedian.

But for me, I wanted to do an authentic impression of him, an authentic character.

You know, I want to be him when I perform as him.

So you can take it either way.

That's up to-- I leave that up to you.

-And then are there people who do not support him who think that you are promoting him?

-Yeah.

I get-- Let me put this right.

I literally get it from all sides.

-That has to be so hard.

-Yes.

-And scary at times.

-Yeah.

So I try to be very-- I don't-- I never self-censor as a comedian.

I try to have integrity.

But if I'm going to write something and it is satirical, I'm not changing it.

And I have many times done Democratic events and pro-Trump events and haven't changed a word.

It is the interpretation of what I say.

-Which you cannot control that.

-Which I cannot control.

So I thought that was very interesting.

But when I do a pro-Trump event, they always come up to me and say, Do you like President Trump?

And I always say, I find him fascinating, which I do.

-You do.

-He's a fascinating character.

If you look at all my characters, they're all big.

Like Dr.

Phil is a big guy, you know?

Austin Powers is a big guy, baby.

Obviously, he's not my character.

He's Mike Myers' character.

But you know, Dr.

Phil, Guy Fieri, I like to do big characters.

And I didn't realize that till a few years ago.

I was like, Oh, I kind of like to do these big, broader characters.

-I don't know if this brings up bad memories, but there was an incident in which someone got physical with you-- -Yes.

- --because you were dressed as President Trump.

-Yeah.

I knew right after-- -What happened?

-We-- It was actually here in town.

-Oh.

-And now I always have security with me in some capacity, especially in public stuff.

In private things, it doesn't really matter.

But we were at Mandalay Bay walking from one of the conventions.

I just performed, and I had four people with me.

We were walking and walking, and people were stopping me to get photos and things like that.

And I would interact with, How are you?

Good to see you.

Wow!

You look fantastic.

Whoa, okay.

You know, the whole thing.

And we got in the elevator, and I just took a deep breath.

And there was somebody on the elevator already.

And those doors closed, and he turned around and he grabbed my throat and he started choking me.

And my producer was, It's not him!

And he goes, I don't care.

It's what he stands for.

But I've got-- I don't want to make it sound like it's what-- I've gotten it from both sides.

And I've gotten threats, like worded threats.

So it's, it's one of these things where you just take it as it is.

It's the environment we live in now.

-You told me off camera ahead of this that as a child, you were fearless.

-Yes.

-You wish you were a little bit more fearless now.

Why, though?

-You know what it was?

My mother called me a canned ham, but my neighbors would sit out on the steps in their neighborhood, in our neighborhood in Ambler, Pennsylvania, right outside of Philadelphia.

It was like a South Philly neighborhood, all row homes, and I just wanted to be in front of them.

I wanted to make people laugh.

And I just loved it.

The adrenaline rush of making people laugh in a group is one of the greatest things.

I think having their attention, making them laugh, and getting that affirmation.

-Okay.

We got to quickly fit in the story of your speech impediment-- -Yes.

- --and the role that your impersonations played in that.

Tell me what happened.

-So I was doing those impressions at five years old.

-Of who?

-Oh, I was doing all the classics.

I was doing Ed Sullivan because I watched John Byner do Ed Sullivan.

And this was-- I was really young.

But I remember thinking, wait a minute.

Ed Sullivan-- Now right on our show, the great John Byner.

And John Byner came out and did Ed Sullivan.

And I was blown away.

Like, wait a minute.

That's Ed Sullivan, and he just did his voice.

And in my mind immediately, I'm like, he's manipulating--as a kid--I'm like, he's manipulating his voice to sound like him.

And that, for some reason, just really blew my mind.

Which is really interesting now, I come back and talk to people about the human voice.

But I wanted to learn how to do Ed Sullivan, and I did it myself.

I learned how to manipulate my voice.

I still had my speech impediment when I wasn't doing impressions--because I was doing James Cagney, Humphrey Bogart, James Stewart--and when I got into first grade, I was diagnosed.

And then it was eight years of speech therapy, and they focused on throat placement, nasal placement, vocal production, jaw placement.

But the most important thing for me was I have a big tongue, which is in my way.

It was tongue placement.

-So those therapists helped pave the way for your career today?

-100%.

And I am so grateful, if you're watching back on the East Coast.

Those people changed my life, and I'm so, so thankful and grateful that that school district [indistinct] School District had those therapists to take me through that journey.

They corrected my speech, and there was some neurological, you know, learning issues, too, which you have to get over.

-We are so pleased to have had you on the show.

John Di Domenico, thank you for joining Nevada Week In Person.

-Thank you for having me.

♪♪♪