JD Vance’s Movie ‘Mamaw’ Baffled by His MAGA Transformation

Glenn Close may have gotten to know VP-elect JD Vance while playing his “Mamaw” in the film adaptation of his memoir Hillbilly Elegy, but now the actress says she “doesn’t know what happened” to him.

During a sit down on The View Wednesday, Close discussed what it was like to work on the film and get to know Vance’s life story. “He helped young Owen [Asztalos], who was playing him, he helped him,” Glose recalled of Vance’s visits to the set during filming. “We all met members of the family. We all sat with them, individually,” she said.

“For me, with Mamaw, I’d say, ‘How did she walk into a room? How did she sit? How did she smoke? How did she laugh? How did she change the chemistry?” Close continued. “The family was very generous with their time,” she added, as co-host Joy Behar interjected that Vance “had a whole different personality in those days.”

Close seemed to agree. “I don’t know what happened,” she said, offering a theory. “I think power—power is probably the biggest aphrodisiac.”

Despite the way Vance depicts himself in the memoir-turned-to-film about the socioeconomic problems of his family and his hometown of Middletown, Ohio, many of the comments he’s made since entering politics in 2022 as an Ohio senator and becoming Donald Trump’s running mate have been off-color or outright offensive.

Close first called out Vance’s rhetoric in August, taking to Instagram to push back against his comments calling Kamala Harris and other Democrats a “bunch of childless cat ladies with miserable lives.” Close wrote alongside a picture of her and her cat, “Eve would have left a bleeding mouse head in the bed of anyone who criticized any kind of lady with a CAT!”

Hillbilly Elegy’s director Ron Howard said he was "surprised and disappointed by much of the rhetoric that I’m reading and hearing” about Vance in the run-up to the 2024 election. Amy Adams, who played Vance’s mother in the film, has not spoken publicly about Vance since his political ascent.