Ron Howard may have directed J.D. Vance‘s life story in the 2020 Netflix drama Hillbilly Elegy, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to vote for him when he runs alongside Donald Trump in this year’s presidential election.
The Oscar-winning director reflected on his time working with Vance when he was adapting his memoir into a feature for Netflix, noting the Ohio senator was not interested in politics at the time.
“I have been surprised and concerned by a lot of the rhetoric coming out of that campaign,” he recently told Variety.
While speaking to Deadline, the director admitted, “We didn’t talk a lot of politics when we were making the movie because I was interested in his upbringing and that survival tale. That’s what we mostly focused on.”
He continued, “However, based on the conversations that we had during that time, I just have to say I’m very surprised and disappointed by much of the rhetoric that I’m reading and hearing. People do change, and I assume that’s the case.”
Howard added that Vance “was not involved in politics or claimed to be particularly interested” when they knew each other. Howard had previously described Vance as “a very moderate center-right kind of guy” who “didn’t care for Trump” at the time.
Hillbilly Elegy, based on Vance’s bestselling memoir, stars Amy Adams and Glenn Close in a generational tale about a Yale Law student returning home to Ohio, where he’s faced with his family’s trauma and what it could mean for his own future.
The film earned an Oscar nomination for Close, who played his grandmother, though it was critically panned when it premiered in 2020.
But the Oscar nom was not enough to keep Close from taking a shot at Vance after a clip resurfaced of him saying the country was being run “by a bunch of childless cat ladies, who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made.”
Close shared a proud image of herself and her cat with the caption, “Eve would have left a bleeding mouse head in the bed of anyone who criticized any kind of lady with a CAT!”
And Howard made clear Vance won’t sway his vote: “There’s no version of me voting for Donald Trump to be president again, whoever the vice president was,” he said, per Variety.
“Look, we gotta get out and vote, for whomever,” he added. “But be thoughtful. Listen to what the candidates are saying today — that’s what’s really relevant. It’s who they are today. And make a decision — an informed one.”
