SNL's Darrell Hammond "was a victim of systematic and lengthy brutality."

"My mom did some things which have cost me dearly."

The actor is well known as the funnyman who graced "SNL" to spoof celebrities like Al Gore, Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Sean Connery. He said there was a darker side that played out in his life, before he became known for those roles, and then later on, backstage before he went out to perform....

Hammond says he was medicated almost all of the time he performed on "SNL" each week, but that wasn't all that was happening behind the stage doors.

"There was cutting backstage," he said, adding that one time, he was taken from the studio to a psychiatric ward because of his actions. "In fact, the week that I did the Gore debates, I believe I was taken away in a straitjacket."

Here's an older clip of Hammond explaining how he worked out his impersonations of Bill Clinton and Al Gore and how he thought in terms of color, for example, picturing both Ted Koppel and Dick Cheney as — for some inexplicable reason — "plush blue." (Like this?)