Adam McKay: I Like to Think ‘Vice’ Had Something to Do with Liz Cheney Supporting Gay Marriage

Liz Cheney made headlines in September after she came out in support of gay marriage. It was only eight years prior that she publicly opposed gay marriage while running for a Senate seat in Wyoming. Liz’s sister, Mary Cheney, is gay, and Liz’s opposition to same-sex marriage resulted in a public falling out between the sisters. Liz told “60 Minutes” this year, “I was wrong. I was wrong. I love my sister very much. I love her family very much.” In a new interview with GQ magazine, filmmaker Adam McKay said he “likes to think” that his 2018 biographical drama “Vice” played a part in changing Liz Cheney’s perspective on gay marriage.

McKay’s “Vice” starred Lily Rabe as Liz Cheney and Alison Pill as Mary Cheney, plus Christian Bale and Amy Adams as the siblings’ parents Dick and Lynne Cheney. One of the final scenes in the movie shows Dick Cheney accepting Liz’s public opposition to same-sex marriage despite Mary being gay and married with children. The family’s views over gay marriage tears them apart.

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When asked by GQ about his takeaways from “Vice,” McKay responded, “The big thing that was really incredible was seeing Liz Cheney come out for gay marriage. It’s one thing for her to go against Trump. But when she came out for gay marriage, there was a part of me that was like, that can’t be an accident. I saw that on social media, people went after her because of the movie. There were a lot of people saying, ‘You betrayed your sister, you betrayed your family.’ And it wasn’t by accident that we ended the movie with that. Because the one thing everyone said about Dick Cheney was he loved those daughters, and he loved that family. And in the end, the family shattered apart because of politics, because of that anti-gay stance that Liz took.”

McKay continued, “To see her come out for gay marriage? I don’t know what to make of that. I like to think we had something to do with that, but I have no way to… I know the Cheneys hated the movie. I know they really hated it. It wasn’t a passing annoyance. So I was quite proud of that. We hit him in the real way.”

Next up for McKay is the release of “Don’t Look Up,” his star-studded Netflix satire about two astronomers (Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence) trying to warn the population about a meteor that will destroy the planet. The film is getting a limited theatrical release starting December 10 followed by a global streaming launch December 24 on Netflix.

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