Frank Langella faces the ghost of Richard Nixon

Frank Langella in "Frost/Nixon"

When it comes to top-notch acting, Frank Langella knows how to deliver. This veteran of the stage and screen has played several famous characters throughout his lengthy career, from Sherlock Holmes to Dracula. But it’s his role as Richard Nixon in "Frost/Nixon" that has brought the actor his greatest acclaim.

"Frost/Nixon" is a character study and dramatization about the 1977 TV interviews that British host David Frost (played by Michael Sheen) conducted with disgraced President Nixon. Langella won a Tony Award for the "Frost/Nixon" play, which had a run on London’s West End in 2006, and on Broadway in 2007. Langella and Sheen reprised their respective roles in the 2008 movie version of "Frost/Nixon," and, as a result, Langella scored his first Oscar nomination. See what Langella had to say when I recently sat down with him during the "Frost/Nixon" press junket in New York City.

Was it very different playing Richard Nixon in the movie versus playing him on a theater stage?

Yes, absolutely. A lot of those things are cliché things like, "You have to hit the back row on the stage," and grander gestures — all of that's true. Then comes the sort of relief of the camera because it’s right here, and you know you can just raise your eyebrow and make an incredible point that you couldn’t necessarily do in the play. So the chief difference is that you can go more internal in a film, and it's wonderful. It's quite exhilarating and releasing.

How did "Frost/Nixon" director Ron Howard affect your process of doing Richard Nixon in this movie?

Ron was about as good as anyone I've ever worked with. He's an actor's director, somebody who truly and completely wants the actor to shine. He wants the film to be about human beings and wants it to be about the soul of people. So one of the greatest gifts he gave us as actors was: "Take your time, don't feel any obligation to arc a scene, and play it in the rhythm you played it onstage, or in the time you played it onstage." [His attitude was] "Just be the person, and I'll cut it. I'll come in for the moments we agree are the most valuable moments." So in that respect, I believe he was the perfect director for this piece.

Frank Langella in "Frost/Nixon"

There’s a scene in the movie that has Nixon making a late-night telephone call to Frost, and later Nixon has no recollection of it. Did that happen in real life?

David [Frost] says no. The phone call didn't happen, that's clear. The greatest thing about that phone call is ["Frost/Nixon" screenwriter] Peter Morgan's imaginative notion of what it would be like if these two epic "monsters" found a way to have a private time together, which they never did have (that intimate a time together) and what it would be like. What would Nixon say?

Oddly enough, when I first read the play, I went to Peter and said, "I'm a little concerned about this phone call. It feels a little editorializing to me and feels like you making a statement, so I'm not sure how organic I can make this." Then after a week of performing it, I said, "I'll break both your legs if you ever cut it!" It's just too good a piece of theater. It's just too marvelous a scene for an actor to play, and I came to love the phone call very much.

Why do you think Nixon has a sense of humor in the film that isn't normally associated with his public persona?

I think that I became so protective of him. I became so compassionate toward him, so that every day I played him I was always thinking. And I stopped thinking "he" and started thinking "me." It stopped being Richard Nixon; it became my creation. He lived with me for such a long time, and I was with him for almost two years, that it was my reacting to whatever was happening. [Nixon] got so deep inside me that no matter what Ron threw at me — like a couple of scenes that were totally new — I just felt, "Oh, this is how he'd behave about money, or a pretty ankle, or a little funny-looking dog." It became second nature to me.

Frank Langella in "Frost/Nixon"

Was it hard going back and forth from being Nixon and returning to being yourself again?

No. I always laugh when I read an actor say, "Oh, I did 'Hamlet' and I couldn't lose the character for two years," and I say, "Well then, you did it wrong." You should be able to lose the character in a relatively short amount of time. It is, after all, a skill and work. By the time I went out to dinner with friends and stuff, [the character] was gone. I would say in the movie he [the Nixon character] hung on longer because I was with him all day.

Is the film more relevant now, given all the criticism of the George W. Bush administration?

I don't think this film is a political movie. I think it's a movie about survival. It's a movie about two men who are trying to resurrect their careers, trying to outfox each other, and each of whom is having a particular emotional crisis, and that's universal. That's in all of us. So I don't think Universal [Pictures, the distributor of "Frost/Nixon"] is unaware that this is a political figure in a very political time, but I think the movie stands as a movie about two men trying to win.

With all of Nixon's insecurities, does it amaze you how successful he became?

No, it doesn't amaze me. My philosophy about that is, "If you have will power and strength, you can overcome." It's actually the people who have the most to overcome, who usually go the furthest. Some people pay the price for that, as Nixon did, because they knock themselves down, because they can't handle what they've achieved.

You'll discover when you talk to really successful people that the vast majority of them were the runts of the litter. They were the middle kid, or the funniest-looking one, or the one that everyone thought would never amount to anything. I was one of those kids. I was a four-eyed little kid, and was very shy and backward; and I had to fight to come up from that.

Whenever I wanted to go out with a girl, she wanted to go out with the football captain. She didn't want a skinny little guy who wanted to be an actor. I was like, "What?" So I had a lot to overcome, and the characters I play most of the time are people who are fighting large-scale, epic problems.

Frank Langella and Michael Sheen in "Frost/Nixon"

In an age when fewer and fewer stage actors get to reprise their roles in the film version, why was it so important that you and Michael Sheen were retained for the movie version of "Frost/Nixon"? 

I can't speak for Michael, but I was very grateful that I was retained. It's happened to me twice: with "Dracula" and with this part. And I don't know if "important" is the right word. I wouldn't say it is "important," because world hunger's important, this is just the movies and show business. But it is very heartening to have been asked to do it, because if you've lived with a character for that long, you'll arguably know him better than any actor they might choose.

And the shorthand on the set with Ron, Michael and [me] was incredible, because Michael and I have been together for 18 months and we never discussed, "Oh you do that, I'll do that." We were able to pick up each other's rhythms … [It] came naturally to us after having been in three rehearsal periods … and with three different casts over a period of 18 months.

If Nixon were alive today, what would you say to him?

I've never been asked that question … I would try to embrace him. I would try to somehow get across to him that, "Living with you for so long, sir, I feel great compassion for your pain," more than anything else.

The thing that Richard Nixon needed more than anything else was a kind of deep and profound acceptance that he never got, probably, from his father. Lots and lots of men suffer from this. Lots and lots of men spend their lives looking for surrogate fathers who never gave them imprimatur, a sense of themselves as men, particularly in the puberty period when you're just coming into your manhood. That's really when you need your dad there to bring you into manhood. And I don't think Nixon ever did.

Did you have that with your father? Or were you missing something like Nixon was? 

Yeah. Most men do. It's the rare man who says, "Boy, I had a great dad. He was there for me all the time. We played ball all the time. He taught me about girls, he told me about sex." Most men will tell you, "I didn't know what I was doing. I never had anybody help me. I had to swim my way through and figure it all out." It's a shame. There really should be a school for parenting.

Frank Langella in "Frost/Nixon"

The movie can make people feel sympathetic to Nixon, when many people see him as one of the most despicable presidents in American history. Can you comment on that?

It would've been totally uninteresting of me to play him as a drunk, or as a crook. Those were two facets of a very, very complicated man, and we mustn't forget that he was a brilliant statesman. [Nixon] was an extraordinarily intelligent man. I spent hours and hours reading his notes, his books. His hopes and dreams for this country in foreign policy were extraordinary, and what he did in China and other places was wonderful. It would be a shame to let all that [go to waste]. History has done it, and he brought it on himself. Nixon was not destroyed by anything or anyone but himself.

How do you feel about the Oscar campaign for this film, and in particular, for your role?

Well, I'm doing what I think I should do, which is part of my job, which is to help promote the film so people will go and see it. I don't think any of this has anything to do with somebody checking your name off.

I've been voting at the Oscars for 30 years and I've never voted for someone because someone said something interesting at a press conference, or told a funny joke on Jay Leno: "Gee, I was caught naked on the balcony of the hotel!" You know, all those dumb things that actors say. In the end, I watch all the performances, and I say, "That’s the one that got me." Not everybody does that, but it can't be in your mind when you're doing this.

Michael Sheen and Frank Langella in "Frost/Nixon"

Can you talk about the dynamic you and Michael Sheen have together?

We met in July of 2006, during the first day of rehearsal at the Old Vic. He walked into the room with all that curly hair and a beard, and he must've thought what I thought: "Gee, this guy doesn't look like anything like [David Frost]." He doesn't, and I don't [look like Richard Nixon]. We had, just as it does with every actor, probably about a week or two to suss each other out and get comfortable with each other's styles and rhythms. We work absolutely differently — completely differently. But at some point our styles blended, and our sense of each other as actors became very sharp and keen. For an actor I've spent more time with than almost any other colleague, we've had fewer discussions about who was going to do what. We just do I We just did it.

Did you ever meet any of Nixon's family, or any people associated with his administration?

Tricia [Nixon's daughter] didn't come, but her husband, Edward Cox, and children came. People who worked for Nixon came to see the play and [some] came backstage. I talked to Frank Gannon [who was Nixon’s friend and special assistant] and had 10 hours of phone calls all during the time before I left for London. I talked to Barbara Walters. I talked to Mike Wallace. Anybody who interviewed him, I went to see as well. And someone would come backstage and say, "I was on his staff during this and that."

Frequently, people came in, in tears, and it was very rewarding that they would remember their boss in that sense. They’d all tell me a little anecdote: "He'd like to take everyone to Trader Vic's once a year." And somebody on the staff said, "Oh God, Nixon would say we're all going to Trader Vic's … and we all knew we'd be sitting around, holding drinks with umbrellas in them, and listening to the boss tell the same stories he told a year ago!" [He laughs.]

Did you ever speak to Diane Sawyer, who used to part of Nixon's staff?

No. I know Diane socially, but I've never met her related to Nixon. Apparently, she didn't talk to anybody about it. Nobody got a word out of her.