The screenwriter behind “The Queen,” and “The Last King of Scotland,” Peter Morgan, set out to write a play that he made certain could never be made into a film, it was about the 1977 interview with Richard Nixon which was conducted by David Frost. The film is now being released on December 5th.
When Morgan spoke with The New York Times he discussed how he when he set out to write something that “breaks every single rule of screenwriting” he hoped when it opened that people would see it could never make a decent film. “I hope people don’t make the mistake of thinking this has any sort of filmic life in it whatsoever.” Even after his play became a hit and he was approached by the likes of Martin Scorsese, George Clooney and Sam Mendes, all of whom wanted to adapt the play into a film, he still refused to believe it could work on screen. “I had these mixed emotions. I thought, on the one hand all the people I most admire in the world seem to be interested. But the secret that I can’t share with any of them is, as a mechanic, the motor won’t work. The car is not roadworthy.”
The unusual play didn’t entice director Ron Howard at first, but he was inspired after viewing the play in the Donmar Theatre in London. “I was surprised when I read it and even more compelled by the performance I saw at the Donmar. I just had a connection with the material and a feeling about how to adapt it. I just wanted to do it.”
Morgan finally gave way and allowed Howard adapt his play, party because he understood that the director’s track record as maker of crowd-pleasing films would help it gain interest. Which wasn’t easy, as Morgan describes the struggle to get any kind of crowd in to act as a test audience, “If you go into a mall and say, ‘Would you like to come and see a film about the interviews done by David Frost and Richard Nixon in 1977?’ They just walk past you. They think you’re mad.”
Ron Howard, who usually opts for action-packed and large scaled projects, was not intimated by the fact that most of the action takes place while one man interviews another in a small room. “I think the tight quarters and the intensity, particularly in the second half, are a huge dramatic asset. And I felt that there were ways of opening it up that didn’t have anything to do with scope and scale, expanding it through detail, through broadening the secondary characters, through utilizing the television medium and just through camera work and the editing.”
We aren’t completely convinced “Frost/Nixon” will turn out to be anything more than this years “Charlie Wilson’s War,” which everyone thought was Oscar bait, but fell short during Awards season, but we’ll see. Langella is fantastic on the regular and should be pretty capable of grabbing himself a Best Actor nomination. “Frost/Nixon” stars Frank Lagella, Michael Sheen (“The Queen”), Kevin Bacon, Sam Rockwell and Oliver Platt. It is slated to be released wide this winter on December 5th.