“Saturday Night Live” star Bowen Yang Yang has embodied Charli XCX, viral pygmy hippo Moo Deng, and Ariana Grande’s future son-in-law so far in the show's 50th season, but taking on vice presidential candidate JD Vance has been his toughest role.
In an interview with Them, the show's first Asian cast member said he was vocal that he might not be the best fit. Outside of current "SNL" cast member James Austin Johnson and his uncanny Donald Trump impersonation, the series has largely used stunt casting to cover the election. In sketches, he faces off against show alums Maya Rudolph, Dana Carvey, and Andy Samberg as Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, and Doug Emhoff.
“Up until the show, I tapped ["SNL" 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,’” the comic joked.
Yang said his biggest hurdle in embodying the Ohio senator was finding a personality in Vance, whose core belief system shifts with the tides. Cracking Vance for Yang involved watching the screen adaptation of his book, “Hillbilly Elegy.” In that memoir, Vance recalls a time he briefly considered whether he might be gay. His grandmother quickly shut down that line of questioning.
“I was just like, Oh, this guy doesn’t have a personality because he’s never had the spine to claim it,” Yang said.
Elsewhere in the interview, the “Las Culturistas” podcast host lauded the long-running sketch show for making space for his brand of queer comedy.
“Queer media has been stuck in this niche purgatory for so long,” he said. “[SNL] puts queer content on a horizontal plane with other things.”
