Hillbilly Elegy director Ron Howard admits he was “surprised” by JD Vance’s embrace of Donald Trump and the GOP’s conservative ideology during his recent successful campaign for Ohio Senator.
“To be honest, I was surprised,” Howard told Variety at the Academy’s Governors Awards in Los Angeles on Saturday. “When I met JD, we didn’t talk about politics because I wasn’t interested in his life. I was interested in his childhood and the ins and outs of his family and culture, so we focused our conversation on that. He struck me as a very moderate, centre-right guy.”
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Howard directed the film adaptation of Vance’s best-selling memoir, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis, which was released as a 2020 Netflix film. Vance’s book chronicled his family’s struggles with poverty and drug addiction during his childhood in Middletown, Ohio. Vance later earned a degree from Yale Law School and, after working at a corporate law firm, became a director of Republican leader Peter Thiel’s venture capital firm. Earlier this month he defeated Democrat Tim Ryan in a race for the US Senate after the seat was vacated by Republican Rob Portman.
Howard’s Netflix film brought Glenn Close Oscar and SAG Award nominations for her role as Vance’s grandmother. Amy Adams was also nominated for a SAG Award for her portrayal of Vance’s mother.
Howard said that in the brief conversations they had about politics, Vance said he “don’t care about Trump.
“He didn’t like him at all the way he tweeted,” he said. “I haven’t spoken to him in a couple of years. I hope now that he has the job that applies his common sense to the questions that will lie ahead.”
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In fact, Howard said, Vance didn’t even show much interest in elected office when they were making the film. “Obviously he wasn’t interested in running for office, but I think his interest has been renewed,” Howard said. “At the time I was working with him, he was focused on starting his family and he became a businessman and I asked him about it, he said, ‘Maybe someone close.’ One day came a little earlier than any of us expected.”
Howard and production partner Brian Grazer were on hand at the Governors Awards to support their Amazon Prime Video rescue drama, Thirteen Lives.
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