RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

For more than two decades, Gary Ja­grup has made Trinidad and To­ba­go laugh with a gift few pos­sess - the abil­i­ty to be­come some­one else with just the sound of his voice.

From for­mer FI­FA vice-pres­i­dent Jack Warn­er and Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark to Sponge­Bob SquarePants and even for­mer US pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump, Ja­grup has built a rep­u­ta­tion as one of this coun­try’s most tal­ent­ed im­pres­sion­ists.

Yet de­spite his fame, he re­mains hum­ble. To­day, the en­ter­tain­er spends most of his days not on stage, but op­er­at­ing a suc­cess­ful mo­bile steam-clean­ing busi­ness he built from the ground up.

Af­ter more than a decade away from the live en­ter­tain­ment spot­light, how­ev­er, Ja­grup be­lieves the time may fi­nal­ly be right for a come­back.

Not through tra­di­tion­al com­e­dy shows and pro­mot­ers, but through the glob­al reach of so­cial me­dia.

His re­cent vi­ral video im­per­son­at­ing Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies lec­tur­ers reignit­ed that pos­si­bil­i­ty. The clip at­tract­ed more than 20,000 views and re­mind­ed him of the sim­ple rea­son he start­ed do­ing im­pres­sions in the first place - to make peo­ple smile.

“It ex­ceed­ed my ex­pec­ta­tions,” Ja­grup said.

In an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, Ja­grup said he dis­cov­ered his tal­ent as a school­boy. When­ev­er teach­ers dis­ci­plined him, he would im­i­tate them be­hind their backs, of­ten to the amuse­ment of class­mates. The habit con­tin­ued through Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege and lat­er at The UWI, where he be­came known for mim­ic­k­ing lec­tur­ers and politi­cians.

Ja­grup said what be­gan as a way to en­ter­tain friends even­tu­al­ly led to com­e­dy per­for­mances across Trinidad and To­ba­go and through­out the Caribbean, in­clud­ing Grena­da, An­tigua and Bar­ba­dos.

But de­spite his grow­ing pop­u­lar­i­ty, Ja­grup found him­self in­creas­ing­ly frus­trat­ed with the en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try.

“The emp­ty promis­es, the high-school dra­ma and the fight-down - I reached a point where I couldn’t han­dle it any­more,” he re­called.

In 2014, he stepped away from per­form­ing pro­fes­sion­al­ly and start­ed a mo­bile steam-clean­ing busi­ness. Us­ing lit­tle more than a pres­sure wash­er, a vac­u­um and de­ter­mi­na­tion, he grad­u­al­ly built a loy­al cus­tomer base and a thriv­ing en­ter­prise.

To­day, he works six days a week and has a full client ros­ter.

Yet, Ja­grup said, the voic­es nev­er left him.

“I still have it in me,” he said. “I just chan­nel it out on so­cial me­dia now.”

Un­like many en­ter­tain­ers chas­ing fame, Ja­grup ap­proach­es his craft with re­straint and re­spon­si­bil­i­ty. He be­lieves im­pres­sion­ists have an oblig­a­tion not to hu­mil­i­ate or at­tack the peo­ple they por­tray.

“I have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty when I’m do­ing voice im­pres­sions of peo­ple,” he said. “I don’t want to come across as per­son­al or like bul­ly­ing. God gave me a tal­ent and I have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to use it re­spon­si­bly and not abuse it.”

That phi­los­o­phy has earned him re­spect from many of the peo­ple he im­i­tates.

Ja­grup said his great­est re­ward is not ap­plause or recog­ni­tion, but know­ing that his per­for­mances bright­en some­one’s day.

“I’ve come across peo­ple who say, ‘Boy, you know how hard my day was and I just lis­tened to you and you made my day.’ That means a lot to me.”

How­ev­er, he said the road to this point has not been easy.

While study­ing en­gi­neer­ing at UWI, Ja­grup be­came se­ri­ous­ly ill dur­ing his fi­nal year and was un­able to com­plete his fi­nal projects. He even­tu­al­ly dropped out, a de­ci­sion that left him deeply dis­ap­point­ed at the time.

While many saw it as a fail­ure, Ja­grup said he saw it as a les­son.

“I moved on,” he said. “I learnt that if some­thing is not work­ing out in life, you try un­til you can’t any­more. Then you try some­thing else.”

In­stead of al­low­ing that set­back to de­fine him, he poured his en­er­gy in­to com­e­dy and lat­er en­tre­pre­neur­ship.

Now, at a stage when many peo­ple are slow­ing down, Ja­grup said he is look­ing to­wards a new fron­tier.

“So­cial me­dia has opened op­por­tu­ni­ties that did not ex­ist when I first en­tered en­ter­tain­ment. Rather than re­ly­ing on pro­mot­ers, I can now build au­di­ences di­rect­ly and even reach in­ter­na­tion­al mar­kets,” he said.

How­ev­er, he said his am­bi­tions ex­tend far be­yond lo­cal pol­i­tics.

While Jack Warn­er re­mains his favourite im­pres­sion, Ja­grup has his sights set on a wider au­di­ence through in­ter­na­tion­al per­son­al­i­ties such as Don­ald Trump and oth­er glob­al fig­ures.

His dream is to be­come a suc­cess­ful con­tent cre­ator while con­tin­u­ing to op­er­ate the busi­ness that has sup­port­ed him for more than a decade.

He has com­mit­ted to spend­ing one hour each day de­vel­op­ing con­tent.

De­ter­mined to achieve his full po­ten­tial through hard work, Ja­grup now of­fers ad­vice to young peo­ple fac­ing dis­ap­point­ment or un­cer­tain­ty.

“Do what you love to do,” he said. “A lot of peo­ple, when they fail at some­thing, want to call it quits, but I want them to know, don’t give up too eas­i­ly. Think pos­i­tive as much as pos­si­ble and don’t doubt your­self.”

For the man whose voice once filled com­e­dy stages across the Caribbean, Ja­grup says his great­est per­for­mance may still be ahead of him.