Actor who played JD Vance stuns media with only nice things to say about the VP

CV NEWS FEED // Netflix star Gabriel Basso, who played Vice President JD Vance in his 2020 biopic “Hillbilly Elegy,” recently told the media that he has “no regrets” about portraying the politician, and reflected on the historic nature of the role. 

The multiple outlets who interviewed Basso appeared be trying to give the rising Hollywood star an opportunity to criticize Vance, which the actor refused to take, instead calling the vice president a “cool dude.”

In an Associated Press (AP) interview earlier this week, Basso was asked if while he ever imagined while he was playing Vance that the now-vice president would be “in the White House.”

“No, no, it’s crazy,” Basso replied. “And it is wild to think that I’ll be forever associated with his pipeline,” the actor continued. “Like people type in ‘vice president’ and they’ll see, ‘portrayed by Gabriel Basso.’”

Playing Vance is “a wild, historical thing that I’ve now done,” Basso added.

The interviewer asked Basso if he had any regrets about taking the role, to which he said “no,” and pointed out that when he played him, Vance “wasn’t even in politics.”

“It would be like asking somebody, ‘Do you regret being a friend to whoever in middle school?,’” the actor noted. “It’s like you just knew them and you worked with them, and you were part of their life and everything. It’s just a wild feeling, to see someone on a global platform.”

Basso then acknowledged that some people might even feel the same way about himself, now that he is the star of a hit Netflix show. “Because I went to school with a lot of people, I bet they’re like, ‘Man, I never thought that he would be out there,’ you know? So, it’s cool.”

In a separate interview with Variety, Basso stated that he had “talked a little bit” to Vance in preparation for his role in the 2020 biopic. The actor called the vice president “a cool dude.”

“We’re both from the Midwest,” Basso, a Missouri native, told the magazine. “We just talked about life — about growing up in the woods.”

Variety reported that the actor had “sidestepped” its question about what he thought about Vance’s political views. In the same interview, Basso told the publication that he is “not really a political person,” but appeared to express criticisms of the centralized nature of the modern United States federal government.

“I think our form of government is illegitimate,” he explained. “It’s never supposed to have been a federal government. That’s not what we started as — but everything is federal now.”

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The publication contrasted Basso’s refusal to attack the vice president with the recent slew of anti-Vance comments made by his “Hillbilly Elegy” co-star Glenn Close. 

During the 2024 presidential election campaign back in August, Close prominently posted a picture of her and her pet cat to Instagram. The post appeared to be a jab at a tongue-in-cheek remark Vance had made about “childless cat ladies” in 2021 – which many on the political left used as a common line of attack against the then-nominee for vice president.

“Hillbilly Elegy” was the film adaptation of Vance’s bestselling 2016 memoir of the same name. Both the book and the film explored the vice president’s inspiring journey from a boy growing up in poverty in Ohio to a U.S. Marine, Yale Law School graduate, and venture capitalist.

The film was released in theatres and Netflix (which also distributed the film) in fall 2020. It was directed by Ron Howard and stars Basso as Vance, Amy Adams as Vance’s mother, and Glenn Close as Vance’s grandmother.

In 2022, two years after the film’s release, Vance – who had not held prior political office – was elected to represent Ohio in the U.S. Senate. Then, two years after that, he was decisively elected to the vice presidency as the running mate of President Donald Trump. Trump and Vance were both sworn in to office last week.

Basso, 30, currently plays the lead role of FBI Agent Peter Sutherland in the enormously popular and critically acclaimed Netflix action thriller series “The Night Agent.” The show was recently renewed for a third season and its second premiered on Netflix this past Thursday.

The New York Post reported that the series is among “Netflix’s most-viewed series ever, the thriller was watched for roughly 812 million hours at the end of 2023,” when it premiered. 

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Although he only turned 30 last month, Basso has already carved out an impressive filmography consisting of roles on both the big and small screens. 

In addition to starring in “The Night Agent” and “Hillbilly Elegy,” he also portrayed a murder suspect in Clint Eastwood’s acclaimed legal thriller “Juror No. 2,” released last year. When he was a teenager, Basso had prominent roles in both the popular Showtime comedy-drama “The Big C” (2010-13) and the Stephen Spielberg-produced science fiction film “Super 8” (2011), the latter of which grossed over a quarter of a billion dollars at the box office.

Also in his interview with Variety, Basso implied that despite his own Hollywood success story, he thinks there’s more to life than just acting.

“Right now, I’m doing acting to the best of my ability,” he said. “But at the same time, I don’t feel like a productive part of society.”

“I think there’s more important things that a 30-year-old man can do with his life,” Basso emphasized. “If all actors were to die tomorrow. society would continue. This business is not important in the scheme of society.”