Actor Who Played JD Vance in ‘Hillbilly Elegy ‘ Condemns Stars Going Political: ‘Shut the F**k Up’

Screenshot via Great Company podcast

Actor Gabriel Basso, who portrayed Vice President JD Vance in the movie Hillbilly Elegy, blasted fellow performers who express their political opinions.

On a recent episode of the Great Company podcast, Basso said he doesn’t believed actors should be “famous” and expressed discontent with actors using their platform to promote their political views. Basso currently stars in the Netflix series The Night Agent.

“We’re saying words that we’re told to say. We’re told how to say them, we’re told where to stand. And then we’re telling people how to vote?” he said.

An actor’s job, he argued, is “illegitimate in that way” and gives no authority to political views.

“You should be quiet, you should do your job. You should be a jester, entertain people. Then shut the fuck up,” Basso said.

The actor added, “We’re court jesters. We’re entertaining. We’re public servants. We’re there to perform, to entertain, and then all of a sudden, the jester, because he’s in the courtroom, starts to be like, ‘I might want to go sit on the throne!'”

Basso previously portrayed Vance in an adaptation of the memoir Hillbilly Elegy long before Vance jumped into politics. He recently told Variety it was “weird” being part of Vance’s timeline today with the man sitting in the White House.

“When he’s thinking about his life — they made a movie of his book, and my name will always be in the description. We talked a little bit. He’s a cool dude,” he said. “We’re both from the Midwest. We just talked about life — about growing up in the woods.”