Although Bowen Yang doesn’t want to play JD Vance, he gives the impersonation his all.
The Saturday Night Live star recalled asking Lorne Michaels “please, please, please don’t make me do this” after he was cast in the “challenging” role the vice president on the long-running NBC sketch comedy show.
“First of all — God’s honest truth, I really do my best with him, but every time I have to play him, I go to Lorne and I say, ‘You can do a buyback. You don’t have to stick with me. Please reach out to Zach Galifianakis. Please reach out to Taran Killam,’” he admitted on The Daily Show. “But, no, that’s my charge.”
Yang added, “I worked with — you guys are going to roll your f—ing eyes. I worked with an accent coach. We had to find the middle between Appalachian but Ohio. Like, we really had to find the right [voice]. And I was like, ‘I don’t want to screw this up.’”
The comedian said he has “such an uphill battle” with his portrayal of the Hillbilly Elegy author.
(L-R) Bowen Yang as JD Vance and Jim Gaffigan as Tim Walz on ‘SNL’
SNL via YouTube
“Everyone in America is going to be like, ‘This Asian guy is playing that guy?’ I was like, ‘I really got to nail this down.’ And I’m just telling you guys, I’m doing my best, okay?” added Yang.
Yang debuted his Vance impression during the star-studded, pre-election cold open of SNL‘s Season 50 premiere in September, along with Maya Rudolph as Kamala Harris, Andy Samberg as Doug Emhoff and Jim Gaffigan as Tim Walz.
