Hollywood heavyweight Ron Howard says JD Vance seems to have changed since authoring a memoir that turned into an Oscar nominated film. The “Hillbilly Elegy” director admitted to being in shock and awe about the politician who’s become a MAGA-minded lightning rod since being tapped in July as Donald Trump’s Republican running mate . Vance, who wrote the best-selling book about his impoverished upbringing in the Appalachian mountains, was referred to as a “polarizing, volatile conservative” during Howard’s appearance at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival .
The former “Happy Days” star-turned-filmmaker explained to Deadline that he and the future Ohio senator “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.” “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,” Howard, 70, continued.
“People do change, and I assume that’s the case. Well, it’s on record.” “When we spoke around the time that I knew him, he was not involved in politics or claimed to be particularly interested,” Howard noted, adding: “So that was then.
” In 2017, the multiple Oscar, Emmy and Golden Globe winner — whose credits include “Cocoon,” “Apollo 13” and “A Beautiful Mind” — snapped up the rights to Vance’s “ Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis .” The harrowing book, which has returned to the top of the New York Times Best Sellers list since the Republican National Convention, was adapted into a 2020 Netflix film starring Glen Close and Amy Adams..
