Dr. Anthony Fauci responds to Brad Pitt’s impression on ‘SNL’

When Brad Pitt channeled his inner immunologist on “Saturday Night Live at Home” over the weekend, the overwhelmingly positive response on social media proved the performance was a crowd-pleaser.

But if Pitt was waiting for the ultimate review of the bit before declaring it a complete success, his wait is finally over. Infectious disease specialist Dr. Anthony Fauci watched the cold open sketch — and he revealed that he liked what he saw.

“I think he did great,” Fauci said during a video visit to Telemundo’s “Un Nuevo Dia” Monday.

It’s not exactly a surprise to learn that the leading public health expert on the White House Coronavirus Task Force was pleased with Pritt’s performance. After all, earlier this month, when a CNN interviewer asked who he’d like to see play him on “SNL," the 79-year-old joked, “Brad Pitt, of course.”

Except, as it turns out, he was really joking.

“I’m a great fan of Brad Pitt, and that’s the reason why, when people ask me who I would like to play me, I mention Brad Pitt,” Fauci said on “Un Nueva Dia.” "He’s one of my favorite actors.”

And after seeing how Pitt portrayed him, the doctor thinks the “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” star is much more than that.

“I think he showed that he is really a classy guy when, at the end, he took off his hair and thanked me and all of the health care workers,” Fauci noted. “So, not only is he a really great actor, but he is actually a classy person.”

In particular, that classy Oscar winner thanked “the real Dr. Fauci” for “your calm and your clarity in this unnerving time.” But that praise came after an opening skit rich in spoofs of Fauci correcting the record following questionable statements about the pandemic from the president.

"When he said everyone can get a test, what he meant was almost no one," Pitt-as-Fauci deadpanned.

So what did the man himself think of that part of the portrayal?

“Everything he said on Saturday is what’s going on,” Fauci said with a laugh. “He did a pretty good job of putting everything together.”