Bowen Yang Says He Begged “SNL” to Pick Someone Else to Play J.D. Vance: ‘Please, Please, Please Don’t Make Me Do This’

• Bowen Yang, 34, revealed that he pleaded with 'SNL' creator Lorne Michaels to not play Vice President J.D. Vance

• While appearing on The Daily Show, he said he hired an accent coach “to find the middle between Appalachian but Ohio”

• Yang shared that he suggested Zach Galifianakis and Taran Killam as potential alternatives to portray the vice president

Bowen Yang revealed that he begged Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels to choose someone else to play J.D. Vance on SNL.

The comedian and podcaster sat down with The Daily Show’s Desi Lydic for the April 10 episode and shared that he wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of portraying the U.S. vice president.

Yang, 34, recalled that "Lorne asked me and I said, 'Please, please, please don't make me do this.' "

"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.' But, no, that's my charge," he added.

Yang also told the audience that he works hard to ensure the impression is as accurate as possible and that he even hired an accent coach to better capture the vice president’s vocal patterns.

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"I worked with — you guys are going to roll your f------ eyes – I worked with an accent coach,” he explained. “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.' "

"I have such an uphill battle here," the Wicked actor continued. "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?"

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Vance isn’t the first high-profile politician Yang has portrayed on the sketch comedy show. He also plays disgraced New York congressman George Santos — which quickly became a recurring fan-favorite character.

Yang is promoting his new movie, The Wedding Banquet, which is a remake of Ang Lee’s 1993 comedy of the same name.

In the modern retelling, Yang plays Chris, a man whose Korean boyfriend, Min (Han Gi-Chan), proposes to their roommate — who is a lesbian —  in order to remain in the U.S. The situation gets more complicated, however, when Min’s traditional grandmother — who does not know he is gay — arrives to throw him a large wedding. The movie also stars Lily Gladstone and Star Wars alum Kelly Marie Tran.

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The movie, which is directed by Andrew Ahn, had its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 27, when Yang revealed in a post-screening Q&A that the cast watched the Showtime reality series Couples Therapy to "dissect all these relationship dynamics together" while making the movie.

"It accelerated our bonding and it just all kind of glued us together in a way that transcended even what Andrew was able to give to us as a director," he said.

The Wedding Banquet is in theaters April 18.

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