You may find this hard to believe, internet sensation that she is, but last year this time, Sarah Cooper was a struggling 43-year-old standup with a handful of followers, happy to be booked into a pizzeria … and almost ready to swing the white flag.
“Did you completely give up on the idea that you could break through?” correspondent Jim Axelrod asked.
“Yes,” she said.
Then the president threw her career a life saver (unintentionally, of course):
Suddenly, Donald Trump’s Cooper lip sync – taking away everything but his words – was the most exciting.
“What my videos did was take all that away and say, ‘Listen to what he’s saying. Listen to what he’s saying not because really, he doesn’t say anything, ” said Cooper.
Born in Jamaica and raised in Maryland, Cooper always had the entertainment bug. But when she was 20, she chose certainty over the dream – working for Yahoo and Google – as well as doing comedy.
Still, tech gave her exactly what she needed: material.
“I noticed during meetings that there was a lot of counterfeiting,” she said. “You saw someone get up and pace the room, so maybe in the next meeting, you’d get up and walk across the room. “
Someone put his hand on a desk, looked at everyone and said, “ Will it scale up? Axelrod suggested.
“Turn right!” she laughed. “That’s very dramatic, but yes.”
So, looking at President Trump at a new conference last April …
“So suppose we hit the body tremendously – be it ultraviolet or just really strong light – and I think you said that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said, the light in the body. , which you can put through the skin or some other way, and I think you said you’re going to test that too. It sounds interesting.
Cooper said, “When he thought, ‘You said we didn’t check that? We’re going to try, right?’ I saw the other person enter the room What? What are you talking about?“
She knew she had found exactly what she needed and who.
Axelrod asked, “Is there a relationship between these techies you see the right phrase drop and President Trump?”
“Oh God, yes. We see the suit and we see the seal and we see people nod that we think, ‘Oh, he must be logical. He must make sense, because why would all these people listen and laugh and clap and agree with him? ”
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She made her video “How to Medical” in two hours, worked as simple as possible, filmed with her smartphone. Sarah Cooper, after 20 years of trying, was an overwhelming success. “And the next morning it had been viewed a million times or something,” she said.
The next thing she knew was Jerry Seinfeld retweeted her; Cher called her Oscar-worthy; and Kamala Harris wanted to talk to her.
But when Mr. Trump leaves his office, don’t think for a moment that Sarah Cooper is in the slightest conflict. Axelrod asked, “Would you like to see him stay a little bit just because he’s good for business?”
“No, no,” she replied. “I think I found a way to spot him that was different and interesting. But I think we’re done. We won’t see it again. And I feel like I should use it as a propellant, but I has got to escape it in a way. I don’t want to be known as ‘The Lip-Synching Girl’. ”
As good as old-school presidential impersonators were Vaughn Meader and Rich LittleSarah Cooper is the next generation.
You’re not Rich Little. You’re not Vaughn Meader… ”Axelrod said.
“Who are these people?” she asked.
“You make me feel like I’m 1,000 years old!”
Cooper laughed, “I’m sorry!”
Now she is ushering in the next phase of her career. she admits to being a little concerned: “What if that was it, you know what I mean? What if that was my 15 minutes? Like, what if I never get to do something so incredible again?”
But a recent Netflix special, with guests like Helen Mirren, and a series in development at CBS, means Cooper will be in a very different place from the last in January.
Axelrod asked, “If we’re on this couch in five years, what do you think we’ll be talking about?”
“I’d like to make the next ‘Seinfeld,'” she replied. ‘I’d like to make the next’ office ‘. I would like to do a show that is really, really in my voice. “
Her voice… not to be. Axelrod asked, “Do you feel like you have to take the mask off: ‘Here’s who I am’?”
“I absolutely wanted to,” Cooper said. “I would like to get to that point where I really feel like myself.”
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Story produced by Gabriel Falcon. Editor: Lauren Barnello.