Jay Pharoah’s Hilarious Impressions of Kevin Hart, The Rock, Stephen A. & More

Jay Pharoah came on the show ahead of Kevin Hart's Sunday roast on Netflix and ran through impressions on demand, with no idea what was coming next. The room got most of what it wanted.

The first prompt was Kevin Hart, asked whether he was nervous about being roasted.

"Listen, there's nothing that you can say to me that I haven't said to myself in the mirror," Pharoah's Hart said. He worked through a riff about his own size, pulled it back from R-rated to PG-13 mid-sentence in front of Rich, and landed on the same self-deprecating note that has powered Hart's entire career. "I can live in a hamster ball."

Then The Rock. The setup was the same question, what The Rock has planned for the Hart roast.

"Kevin has a job coming up as the cross on my neck," Pharoah's Rock said. He pivoted into a riff about hamster lifespans. Hamsters normally live two years. Hart, the bit went, is now an immortal gerbil at 42.

Rich called for a fantasy team name.

Stephen A. Smith was next, dropped without warning into a take on National Coconut Cream Pie Day. Pharoah's Smith escalated from food rankings into autobiography.

"If we talking about bake-offs, I'm the best baker ever created," Pharoah's Smith said. "You want to know why? Because I got a Black grandmother."

The Jason Statham impression was about NBA flopping, the topic Rich is unable to escape this week. Pharoah's Statham nominated Shaquille O'Neal's old fall as the worst flop he has ever seen, and used it to call O'Neal an actor.

That triggered O'Neal himself. Pharoah's Shaq took the roast and ran.

"Shaq loves to be roasted. He don't care," Pharoah's Shaq said. Then he listed the businesses that, in his telling, will always have him employed. He named Papa John's as the one he never should have done. The justification he gave for his career immortality was sharp enough that Rich's room had to clean it up.

"I've never been on Epstein Island," Pharoah's Shaq said. "That's why."

Pharoah, in his own voice, took a moment between bits to push back on a recurring comment under his social posts. People accuse him of selling his soul to get where he is.

"Do you think if I sold my soul, I would be performing at comedy clubs?" Pharoah said. "Come on, son. I would be at stadiums right now."

He name-checked Jo Koy and Gabriel "Fluffy" Iglesias as the stadium tier he is not in yet.

Rich asked for the timing on the tour. Pharoah had dates running through the rest of the month at jaypharoahworld.com.

The Hart roast streams Sunday night on Netflix.