James Austin Johnson has appeared in a Coen brothers movie, been killed on Better Call Saul, and was once told by George Clooney that he looked just like Wes Anderson. But none of those brushes with fame, nor his regular appearances as a stand-up comedian and podcast host, did more to put Johnson on the map than Scooby-Doo and President Donald Trump.

“Scooby-Doo, they call him Scooby-Doo. They call the show Scooby-Doo. But Scooby doesn’t do anything. Scooby is not involved,” Johnson, as Trump, said in an August video that has amassed more than 1.7 million views on Twitter. “Half the time Scooby is not involved. He’s just a bystander. It’s one of the worst deals we’ve ever had.

“Scooby, frankly, gets much too much attention, money,” Johnson said later in the video. “We’re giving way too much attention to Mr. Scooby.” It’s uncanny, the way he replicates Trump’s tone and free-associative speaking style.

“I had a day job where I was folding clothes with other stand-up comedians and touring musicians, and we were all in this merch warehouse together. That’s really where I got a lot of my Trump takes from. It was like being around friends,” Johnson told Vanity Fair in a recent interview. “There’s a social aspect to it, that we’ll just be chitchatting about something, having a conversation at work. That’s where the Scooby-Doo one came from.

“That was just some lunch break horsing around,” Johnson added. “I literally ran out to get sandwiches in downtown L.A. and bring them back, and while I was walking back to my truck, I just started doing that video. And that’s probably the best one, circulation-wise.”

Johnson has been a stand-up comedian for years, having gotten his start as a teenager in clubs around Nashville, Tennessee. It was in similar Los Angeles venues where his pitch-perfect Trump impression began to take shape.

“When he first got elected and I was playing with the voice in 2016, 2017, it would show my sort of left-wing anger a lot. I would be like, ‘We’re going to kill everybody. We’re blowing up everybody’s houses I don’t like,’” Johnson recalled, seamlessly slipping in and out of his Trump voice. “I’d be more openly racist and homophobic as Trump.”

What Johnson noticed was that patrons didn’t respond to direct mimicry. “As it developed and got more sounding like him, the bar would go silent. Not necessarily laughing, which is very rare for that room. Either it’s talking and laughing, or it’s silent and laughing. But it’s never silent and silent,” he said. “I noticed that people were listening and not liking what they were hearing when I was repeating what Trump said or heightening it—making it more vicious to people, darker.”

It was then that Johnson decided to pivot. Rather than creating an impression similar to what Alec Baldwin has done on Saturday Night Live (restating many of Trump’s most offensive real-life comments for comedic effect), Johnson began experimenting with a more abstract take. He talked about Final Fantasy VII as Trump. He imagined what Trump would sound like repeating Radiohead lyrics.

For Johnson the rules of the impression are limited. He doesn’t write material anymore. “I think I might have written out a couple of things a couple of times, and I just noticed that those wouldn’t take off online and it was missing some mojo of what makes Trump Trump,” he said. “And those are the Trump impressions that I hate. When I go online and I watch other people’s Trump impressions, they’re so written out, with these written-out jokes. It just doesn’t sound like Trump.”

As Johnson noted, “Trump is not written out, and he’s not rehearsed.” He has a teleprompter mode, which he breaks out in Rose Garden statements and press conferences, and a rally mode, in which he can be more improvisational—often to offensive and inflammatory effect.

“I tend to hover around Rally Trump, and there’s absolutely no rehearsal there. I pick a pop-culture topic, usually something that is an actual opinion I actually hold,” he said.

In keeping with the modern aesthetic of TikTok and social media platforms, Johnson’s videos are charmingly lo-fi. He often records them either while walking down the street or driving in a car. (In those videos his wife usually operates the camera.) The physical movement helps Johnson keep his brain active, he explained, “sort of like how Brad Pitt always has a sandwich on camera.”

Johnson’s had a lifetime of theatrical training: He started acting at 10 and studied the Sanford Meisner technique in college, which pushes performers to memorize their lines so deeply that they can fully embody a character. “The lines that you’ve memorized will come across as natural when you’re in the moment. But it helps you to free up so you can do stuff while you’re—that you can have action while you’re speaking it. It makes it really natural,” he said.

Johnson has also noticed that videos where he’s in motion perform better than clips he shoots sitting in front of a laptop. “It may be less about how it presents in the Twitter thumbnail, and maybe more about my actual performance,” he said. “My performance is probably just better walking around. And I think I’m more tapped into the subconscious. You have to be in your id. You have to be in your subconscious lizard head to do Trump.”

Johnson’s impression has frequently been cited as the best in a sea of Trumps. The interest has led to a brief spot on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, more than a few online profiles like this one, and the support of high-profile actors who share his videos with their equally famous pals.

When asked if being associated with someone whom he clearly doesn’t support somehow taints the fame he’s garnered this year, Johnson said no.

“If it’s Trump that gets people to follow me on Twitter and Instagram, I’ll take it. I’m just going to keep putting up other shit,” he said. “I bet Modest Mouse doesn’t hate that they had that ‘Float On’ song. They have a bunch of weird guitar music that if all you know is ‘Float On,’ hey, that’s great. But if it brings people into their weird music, I look at it that way.”

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