Famous actor Gabriel Basso recently spoke out in defense of JD Vance, maintaining that he has no regrets about portraying the vice president in the 2020 film “Hillbilly Elegy” based on Vance’s bestselling memoir. Basso, known for other roles in films such as Netflix’s “The Night Agent,” explained that the former Ohio senator is a “cool dude.”
“Did you ever imagine when you were playing [Vance] that he’d be in the White House?” the Associated Press asked the actor during a recent interview. “No. No, it’s crazy,” he replied. Basso continued, “And it is wild to think that I’ll be forever associated with his pipeline [to becoming Vice President].” He noted that whenever people search for Vice President Vance they will see “portrayed by Gabriel Basso,” engraining him in history. “That’s a wild historical thing that I’ve now done,” Basso joked.
Basso was asked by the Associated Press if he had any regrets in portraying Vance in the film. “No,” Basso confidently responded. “I mean, at the time, he wasn’t even in politics,” he added. “It’d be like asking somebody, ‘Do you regret being a friend to whoever in middle school?’ It’s like, you just knew them, and you worked with them and you were a part of their life and everything.”
“It’s kind of weird to be included in that timeline. When he’s thinking about his life — they made a movie of his book, and my name will always be in the description,” he further noted. Basso described his personal interactions with Vance as well, saying, “He’s a cool dude. We’re both from the Midwest. We just talked about life — about growing up in the woods.”
However, not all of the cast in “Hillbilly Elegy” has maintained a positive view of Vance amid his political aspirations over the past few years. The American Tribune reported on comments from Glenn Close, who starred as Vance’s mamaw in the film adaptation. The actress made critical comments about Trump’s running mate last summer. Close criticized Vance over his “childless cat lady” comment from years ago.
The actress took to Instagram to write about her cat, “Eve would have left a bleeding mouse head in the bed of anyone who criticized any kind of lady with a CAT!” Several years ago, Vance had suggested that the Democratic Party was being disproportionately governed by single and “miserable” women. The left quickly used the clip as an attack against Vance.
“We are effectively run in this country … by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they wanna make the rest of the country miserable, too,” Vance said during a 2021 interview. “It’s just a basic fact. You look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez), the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children.”
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Last year, Vance’s “Hillbilly Elegy” shot to the top of the New York Times best sellers list after it was revealed that Vance would be President Donald Trump’s running mate. The book discussed the plight of Appalachia where many are burdened with low socio-economic status and few opportunities. Watch Basso discuss Vance below:
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.