Director Ron Howard is “surprised and disappointed” by Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance teaming up with former President Donald Trump to win the White House.
In an interview with Variety, Howard made his unease with the rhetoric emerging from Republican nominee’s campaign very clear.
“I have been surprised and concerned by a lot of the rhetoric coming out of that campaign,” he told the outlet.
Howard, who directed the 2020 adaptation of Vance’s 2016 memoir Hillbilly Elegy, worked closely with Vance during the film’s production, but rarely discussed politics at the time.
“Hillbilly Elegy” director Ron Howard says that he’s been “surprised and concerned by a lot of the rhetoric coming out of [the Trump-Vance] campaign…We gotta get out and vote, for whomever. But be thoughtful.” | Variety #TIFF Studio https://t.co/WhhkYAyfc6 pic.twitter.com/31taodHKyE
— Variety (@Variety) September 7, 2024
“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 told Deadline.
“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,” he said during the interview. “People do change, and I assume that’s the case.”
According to Howard, Vance did not appear to have political aspirations while they were shooting the movie.
From @realronhoward and @briangrazer and based on the bestselling memoir, here’s the trailer for HILLBILLY ELEGY starring Amy Adams and Glenn Close pic.twitter.com/KvolRCJ18c
— Netflix Tudum (@NetflixTudum) October 14, 2020
“When we spoke around the time that I knew him, he was not involved in politics or claimed to be particularly interested. So that was then,” he explained to the outlet.
Now that Vance has joined Trump on the Republican ticket, Howard is not any more inclined to vote for the former president.
“There’s no version of me voting for Donald Trump to be president again, whoever the vice president was,” he said to Variety.
“Look, we gotta get out and vote, for whomever. But be thoughtful,” Howard advised Americans.
“Listen to what the candidates are saying today — that’s what’s really relevant,” he added. “It’s who they are today. And make a decision — an informed one.”
In 2022, Howard was shocked that Vance ended up running for the Senate as a Republican.
“To be honest, I was surprised,” Howard told Variety at the time. “When I was getting to know J.D., we didn’t talk politics because I wasn’t interested in that about his life.”
“I was interested in his childhood and navigating the particulars of his family and his culture so that’s what we focused on in our conversation,” he added. “To me, he struck me as a very moderate center-right kind of guy.”
“He apparently wasn’t interested in running for office, but I think his interest was renewed,” Howard commented.
“At the time I was working with him he was concentrating on starting his family and he was becoming a businessman and I asked him about it, he said, ‘Maybe somebody down the road.’ Someday came a little sooner than any of us expected.”
He was also stunned that Vance ended up embracing the former president, because in the few conversations they had about politics during filming, Vance “didn’t care for Trump.”
“He didn’t like him at all, as he tweeted,” Howard remarked. “I haven’t talk to him in a couple of years.”
“I hope now that he’s got the job that’ll apply what I think his good common sense to the questions that will come before him,” Howard predicted wrong.
In the entertainment industry many who have known/worked w/ Trump think that while his reality show was fun and ran a long time, he’s a self-serving, dishonest,morally bankrupt ego maniac who doesn’t care about anything or anyone but his Fame & bank account & is hustling the US https://t.co/Ep8ggvquMY
— Ron Howard (@RealRonHoward) January 1, 2020
The Apollo 13 director has never been a fan of Trump, which he pointed out in a scathing January 2020 tweet.
“In the entertainment industry many who have known/worked w/ Trump think that while his reality show was fun and ran a long time,” he detailed.
“He’s a self-serving, dishonest, morally bankrupt ego maniac who doesn’t care about anything or anyone but his Fame & bank account & is hustling the US,” Howard claimed.
Glenn Close shading JD Vance pic.twitter.com/Fbk31bOQJ9
— Erik Anderson (@awards_watch) August 11, 2024
Actress Glenn Close, who earned an Oscar nomination for her role as Vance’s Mamaw in Hillbilly Elegy, took aim the Republican senator on social media after his controversial comments from 2021 recently resurfaced.
Close jumped on the bandwagon of female celebrities criticizing Vance for claiming that the country is run by “a bunch of childless cat ladies, who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made.”
Close posted a photo of herself with her cat on Instagram, captioned, “Eve would have left a bleeding mouse head in the bed of anyone who criticized any kind of lady with a CAT!”