‘Hillbilly Elegy’ director Ron Howard reveals last text to ‘divisive’ JD Vance

The director of “Hillbilly Elegy,” the movie about Vice President JD Vance’s fraught upbringing, time as a Yale Law student and Appalachian hometown roots, said that he didn’t anticipate Vance’s rhetoric to be as “divisive” as it has become.

During a conversation with Vulture published Wednesday titled, “‘You’re Only As Good As Your Last Film’ Ron Howard has worked with everyone from Bette Davis to J.D. Vance. He has stories about all of them,” director Ron Howard was appeared perplexed by Vance’s public persona. 

Howard also revealed the last time he texted Vance and the content of the message. 

Bilge Ebiri, a film critic for “Vulture,” asked Vance, “You obviously spent a lot of time with J. D. Vance back then; you did press together. Are you able to reconcile the person you knew and the character in the movie with the person you see now?”

“It remains a bit of a surprise to me,” Howard said. “I would not have seen it coming, and I wouldn’t have expected his rhetoric to be as divisive as it sometimes is. By the way, I’m not following him or listening to every word.”

The veteran film director revealed that he had one recent interaction, via text, with Vance.

“I did one text, after the election, which was just sort of ‘Godspeed. Try to serve us well,’” Howard said.

“Hillbilly Elegy,” released in 2020, is an adaptation of Vance’s 2016 memoir of the same name. 

Howard stated that he was unsure about his film’s legacy. 

“I know it’s a mixed bag and probably quite culturally divided,” Howard said. “I also know that reviews were bad and the audience-reaction rating was pretty good.”

According to Howard, Vance was “frustrated” by the response to the film.

“I remember reading that the response to the film had really shocked him,” Ebiri asked Howard. “Did you get that sense at the time?”

“Yes, I did,” Howard said. “He was frustrated by that. He loved Glenn Close’s performance and Amy Adams’s performance and liked the film. And he felt that, just as reviews had kind of turned on the book, his involvement was in some way tainting or coloring the critical response, and he resented it.”