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Saturday Night Live star Bowen Yang has spoken about his initial resistance to performing as Ohio Senator JD Vance on the season 50 premiere of the NBC late-night sketch comedy.
On the September 28th episode, Yang, 33, made his debut as the mustachioed Vance.
However, in a recent interview with them, Yang revealed that up until the live show, he was positive he was the wrong choice to impersonate the Republican Vice Presidential nominee.
“Up until the show, I tapped [creator Lorne Michaels] on the shoulder and I was in the full beard and the full geish and I was like, ‘You can do a buyback if you want,’” he recalled, explaining that he found it difficult to relate to Vance.
That was until he watched Netflix’s Hillbilly Elegy, an adaptation of Vance’s best-selling 2016 memoir, which features a scene of the young Vance (portrayed by Owen Asztalos) questioning his sexuality only to be shut down by his “mamaw” (Glenn Close).
“I was just like, Oh, this guy doesn’t have a personality because he’s never had the spine to claim it,” said Yang, who is gay himself.
The next week, Yang returned to SNL as Vance alongside Jim Gaffigan’s Minnesota Governor Tim Walz to parody the first Vice Presidential debate.
During the sketch with Heidi Gardner and Chloe Fineman as CBS News moderators Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan, Yang’s Vance was asked to give his opening statement.
“Thank you for having me. I want to begin with something that will appeal to women voters. I understand that both moderators are mothers, and I like that,” he said, in reference to Vance’s controversial “childless cat lady” comments.
Fineman’s Brennan then turned her attention to Gaffigan’s Walz, asking: “Governor Walz, it looks like you’re already scribbling down notes. Are you preparing your answers?”
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“No, I got to grade these papers. Got a stack of midterms,” Gaffigan responded as Walz, who was famously a high school social studies teacher and football coach before he entered politics.
“Ok we begin tonight with the topic of Israel,” Fineman’s Brennan continued. “Senator Vance, how would you solve the ongoing crisis in the Middle East?”
“You know that is such an important question, Margaret. One that deserves and answer because it’s important and it’s a question that you asked of me tonight,” Yang’s Vance replied.
“You’re not going to answer, are you?” Fineman’s Brennan questioned, with Yang’s Vance cheekily confirming: “No I’m not.”
Saturday Night Live airs Saturdays on NBC at 11:30pm.
