Tom Sainsbury is an accomplished playwright, actor and director, who found national fame in 2017 with his Snapchat impressions of politician Paula Bennett. In this interview he covers many topics, including:
- His early inspirations, like The Naked Gun, French and Saunders and Star Wars
- Feeling that he’s “clocked” theatre, with projects in other mediums on the go
- Working with Madeleine Sami on TV series Super City, after meeting her at a party
- How the immediacy of Snapchat makes it an ideal medium for satire
- Meeting and liking his repeated political parody victim, Paula Bennett
- His hope that political correctness will start to become the butt of jokes, rather than a comedy constraint
Sainsbury also makes an appearance in the final minutes of this Funny As interview with Chris Parker, to discuss comedy troupe Snort.
This interview was recorded for 2019 TV series
Funny As: The Story of New Zealand Comedy.
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Augusto, and may not be reproduced. Publication of
Funny As
extended interviews made possible with funding from the
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I feel that I will be forever associated with Paula Bennett ... I think it'll always be the tagline 'Tom Sainsbury: Paula Bennett impersonator', until I do something better. Fingers crossed I do that.
– Tom Sainsbury on his Snapchat impersonations