Original subtitles

It almost doesn't even matter if you

don't understand every single word

because I don't think an audience

necessarily understands every single

word

but they get the feeling. You get you

get you understand the journey that the

character is going through. Um, and you

know, when I, for example, later on did

Richard II at the Old Vic that Trevor

Nun directed, it was slightly terrifying

experience because he absolutely

wanted me to sound like an English king.

And, you know, I'm I'm a kid from New

Jersey, you know, I mean, it was uh it

was very intimidating to try to

authentically sound like an English

king. I'm on stage with British actors

that have been doing it their whole

lives. And uh it was quite a task for me

to learn that um process to where I

began to feel comfortable enough with

the sound of my own voice, the sound of

how things came out of my mouth. Um and

I also was quite determined in that

production. Um, you know, Richard II is

one of those plays where it's been known

for its language and for its uh actors

who've played Richard II uh have been

known to be rather velvety in the way

that they uh ascribe those words and

that and I remember having many

discussions and even some arguments with

Trevor about the fact that I didn't want

to play Richard II as a as a character

who was in love with the sound of his

own voice, that he was actually fighting

for something and fighting for for his

life and fighting for uh his position.

Um

and ultimately is a changed man by the

end of that play.

I I just did something that's an acting

piece, but it also slightly required an

ability to

um hear and and try to grapple with um

an attitude. And that was I just played

Richard Nixon.

I've just done a film about Richard

Nixon and the famous meeting he had with

Elvis Presley. And so the decision was I

I can't do an outandout impression of

Richard Nixon. It can't sustain

for a 2-hour film. And you know, I could

probably learn a Richard Nixon that

would be an immediate Richard Nixon, but

it didn't feel like that would be

interesting or could sustain. But I

suppose in many ways when I've done

impressions and I've learned how to do

people my whole life that I've also

tried to get into their personas to

understand the way they thought and if I

can get to a place where it's you're

actually embracing the persona of

someone. So, I I began to listen to a

lot of the tapes and a lot of the phone

conversations that Nixon had

because I wasn't interested in watching

his public speeches. I mean, seen a lot

of those, but nothing that I was doing

in the film was public. It was all a

private meeting that happened in the

White House in the Oval Office.

And what I began to realize as I started

listening to really hours and hours and

hours of these tapes is Nixon's foul

mouth.

I mean, his use of language, I think,

shocked more Americans when those tapes

were first released that this was the

way the president of the United States

was talking in the Oval Office than

anything that had to do with covering

up, you know, 18 minutes of tape. And so

I I began to try to imagine a person who

certainly had that level of paranoia

that he had. And by the way, what was

interesting about playing him in this

movie was it was pre-Watergate. So this

is 1970. I wasn't saddled with

Watergate.

But what I was saddled with was this

man's persona, which was very grumpy.

I mean, he was just grumpy a lot of the

times when you listen to him on these

tapes. And so there's a whole, you know,

that son of a [ __ ] goddamn

[ __ ] is not going to come into

this goddamn, you know, there's a

certain kind of um cadence and rhythm

and attitude

about those people out there who are

[ __ ] trying to get into here. And it

was a really interesting experience to

then go on set and be on set um and to

try to capture

this man's essence

without feeling this obligation to do an

imitation. It was a very interesting

experiment to see how far

I could go or how or how less I could

go. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I suppose there

are just things where you wanted to at a

certain point

have a physicality that was Nixonian,

have a a kind of way perhaps maybe maybe

a total of maybe four or five or six

lines in the whole movie where it would

sound very much the way that Nixon might

say something, you know, a certain

cadence uh clipped uh quality that he

had when he spoke. Um, but not to out

and out be doing a, you know, a sort of

a rich little kind of impression of, you

know, Dicky Nixon. That that just to me

would wear out its welcome very, very

early. Obviously, I'm not the first

actor to to tackle Richard Nixon. Um,

but I actually, it was weird because I

remember screen testing for Frost Nixon

and that was a really interesting

experience to have to have played Nixon.

you know, I didn't get the part, but to

have had that opportunity to have

learned when I went back and looked at

that film, which I still have uh from

that screen test um before I started

shooting um Elvis Nixon, it was really

interesting and helpful for me to look

at where I felt I'd made mistakes, where

I felt that I was talking too slow,

where I felt that it was too much of an

imitation of him and not enough of the

real man. It was actually very helpful

for me to see that um all these years

later because that was back in 2005 or

four that I I think I auditioned for

that film. So, it's interesting that

even over these years I I've sort of

been grappling with with learning how to

do Nixon in one way or another.

I had an experience um doing a

a very successful Broadway play uh

called Lost and Yoners that was written

by Neil Simon, directed by Jean Saxs,

both wonderful men of the theater. And

I can't exactly tell you what it was

that happened, but

um somewhere in the course of

rehearsals, I

I missed some steps. I I can't even

quite ever put my finger on what it was

that I didn't accomplish or didn't do,

but I I got ahead of myself. And

sometimes that can happen where you're

just suddenly in performance. It's just

you're suddenly the show is up and

you're performing and and and yet I was

feeling like

my character wasn't genuine. I didn't

think that, you know, the comedy

was at the level I wanted it to be at,

which is that I also wanted it to feel

real in addition to just getting my

laughs. Everyone on the production

creative team looked at me like I was

out of my mind. You're getting your

laughs. What are you talking about? It's

fantastic. People are loving you. And I

was like, "Yeah, I know I'm getting my

laughs, but I could also drop my pants

and have a duck fly out and I'd get a

laugh, but it doesn't make it

appropriate." And so I decided when we

got to Washington DC that I would um

call on an old friend, a very good

director friend of mine. And so I I

asked if he would come to Washington and

spend as much time as we needed quietly

um trying to rethink, reshape, maybe

even reststage

this performance that I was giving in

this play. My director friend came and

saw the first performance that he was

able to see. We were at the National

Theater in DC and he we went out

afterwards for dinner and he said to me,

"It's not as bad as you think." Um, and

I was like, "Really?" And he said, "No,

no, no. It's it's um basically you've

got all these pearls and no string,

so we're going to give you some string."

And so over the next nearly 15 days,

very quietly,

I would try different things. Um, I

would ask, you know, I'd call Neil Simon

on the phone and say, "Can I can I not

do that line about Swiss cheese? Can I

just get to that other point?" Yeah.

Neil's like, "Sure." And the changes I

was making were so subtle and sort of

that it didn't really I don't think it

really dawned on anybody what was going

on

until we got to New York. And uh I'll

never forget on the very first preview,

Neil Simon came racing backstage after

the first act at intermission

to rip me a new [ __ ] Who the hell

did I think I was? He only realized how

many lines I had cut uh in these sort of

very quiet phone calls that I was making

over the course of of the last month.

But it was intermission and I did say to

him, "We can have this conversation

after I finished act two. Is that

possible?" Um but then later he realized

what I had been up to and and

appreciated the fact that I had actually

done the work I'd done. And in the end,

I got one of the greatest letters I've

ever gotten from a playwright on opening

night from Neil. But I illustrate that

story just to say that

sometimes

actors can go through situations where

they feel they have no control and where

they feel, as I did, that I wasn't good

enough and I wanted to be good enough.

But sometimes you can find yourselves in

that place where you just you either can

make a choice to do something or you can

make a choice to live with it. And I I I

chose not not to live with it.