Bowen Yang Begged ‘SNL’ Boss Lorne Michaels to Not Make Him Play JD Vance
JD Vance isn’t a role Bowen Yang wanted, but it’s one he got. The Saturday Night Live star begged executive producer Lorne Michaels to have someone else play the U.S. vice president, as he confessed on The Daily Show on Thursday.
“Lorne asked me, and I said, please, please, please don’t make me do this,” Yang told Daily Show cohost Desi Lydic in that April 10 episode. “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.’ But, no, that’s my charge.”
The comic actor has played Vance six times, having debuted the impersonation in SNL’s 50th season premiere in September 2024, according to SNL Archives. And on The Daily Show, Yang said he finds impersonating the Hillbilly Elegy author really challenging.
“I worked with — you guys are going to roll your f***ing eyes — I worked with an accent coach,” he said. “We had to find the middle between Appalachian but Ohio. Like, we really had to find the right [voice].”
Yang explained that he had “such an uphill battle” in the role, quipping, “I got my almond eye. Like, 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, OK? And I’m not even on ketamine. It’s amazing.”
Yang also talked about the challenges of playing Vance in an Extra interview last October. “I’m very honored,” he said at the time. “It’s hard to say no to Lorne Michaels, but I just wanted to make sure he was very, very sure. And I think he’s making such an interesting choice with the election — like, stack the Democrats’ side and make them sort of like the fun family and then kind of make JD and [Donald] Trump kind of the weird crooks and weirdos on the other side, and so I feel like that’s the intention. I’m happy to play second, third, fourth, fifth fiddle to all the other people.”
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