REAGAN (2024) I Interviews with Penelope Ann Miller, Jon Voight, and Sean McNamara.

I just want to say you and your sisters look amazing oh my sisters I love that excellent is it intimidating or is it more exciting looking at the blank page and being like my God I'm GNA be writing a movie about Reagan great question intimidating first as it grew it became my my life's work so I loved it but I was scared to death when I started just scared to death it's a big story I lived his time so I was in college when he was president so I was very familiar with it but I think for me it it's it was the story of as a child his mother kept saying there's a purpose in your life he didn't actually find that purpose until he was 70 years old until he had been assassinated then he knew the rest of my life is meant to I'm going to bring down that Berlin wall so I everything in the spine of the story leads to that so if it wasn't easy there was a lot but but that's the theme and so it wasn't it wasn't that terribly hard intimidating how intimidating was it to like take on this project you know it's interesting I was John aalson who directed Rocky one of my favorite directors in the world was originally hired to do it so Karate Kid Rocky my goodness but when he passed away the the Baton was handed to me and I just absolutely love the story love him and was able to you know jump in there and I got to work with an old friend Dennis Quaid genius actor and uh all my God that we got to make a movie together speaking of genius and like how much how closely did you have to work with Dennis to to kind of get the voice of like Ronald re he has like that certain voice Annunciation you know it's it's interesting um we had to study all his speeches the original ond Reagan and we realized back in the for these people talk faster and they talked up here in the highest register and then when he got older and he became the governor he was down here and then well when he was president he uh talked in the L register so we studied the speeches we went to you know YouTube and found the videos but it's all Dennis Dennis did the research he really is a genius actor and did the great research Young Ron Reagan you know and everything so like the Lifeguard stuff so I got to ask you did you get more buff cuz you're already buffed now or did you lean down a little bit I lost like 15 lbs so like I from where I'm at now I think I lost 15 lbs yeah cuz he was so skinny he was a rail you know and I I'm pretty naturally pretty athletic dude I was watching on screen I was like dude he's buff man pretty yeah I I work out and uh I couldn't I couldn't lose I wanted to lose less weight I just couldn't get it off um but it was a blast working on that on the accent trying to find footage of early Reagan it was a challenge but I had a blast I had a really good time doing it here you get to do like a Russian voice and you're playing a Russian and everything you know another guy who's a very American guy is Robert Davi and the two of us play Russians he plays Brean and I play this spy how was how was doing the voice just putting the voice was it simple or you're like I needed to work on it and also because like you're also like narrating kind of the story yeah yeah well you know I I found uh I found a great uh Source in in a fellow by the name of Yuri bof if you look him up Yuri bof you'll find his story is very interesting he he defected from the Soviet Union at a point when he was became disillusioned and he wound up here in the states and he tried to tell us what was going on he tried to tell us what the KGB was doing that the real battle was not with bullets and guns the real battle was in psychological warfare uh propaganda Works they worked out a very intricate system that really works I was so looking forward to seeing your transformation as Nancy Reagan and so I was wondering for you cuz I heard like you know sea had told me that you had Mersed yourself so for you was like intimidating or were you excited that's Fant I was both I was intimidated for sure because she's such an iconic figure and such a Powerhouse and such a force to be reckoned with and everybody knows her and is going to compare me and then of course there was the excitement about uh the challenge of playing her as an artist you know that's what we aspire to do I think is I don't want to be T cast and I want to show that I can play different characters maybe ones that people don't expect me to play so of course I had to delve into an enormous amount of research I looked at so many videos and interviews and uh it just was so important to me in the look the hair the makeup the Wardrobe you know this is my this is my homage to her and my red dress her favorite you look fantastic one shoulder the Ruffles this is all Nancy I so for you just sitting in the chair when they're doing probably the wig first to the hairstyle and then like when they bring the wardrobes out and you're like putting the wardrob on I mean are you like yes I am her I mean yeah it really helps you uh embody the character when you and it does that with a lot of the characters I've played but once you're in that especially her once I felt like I could somewhat resemble her you know of course I initially wanted to capture her Essence but but but that definitely made a difference once I was kind of in that wig and the makeup and the Wardrobe I just felt like okay and then of course opposite Dennis who is such a great Reagan and he just had it down I think the two of us just somehow clicked and hopefully it works I was wondering like what your reaction to was like he him do the voice for the first time you're just like wait wait give me a second okay now let's go yeah yeah yeah um yeah and everyone knows that voice so it was so important but we didn't want to do caricatures we didn't want to do impersonations so that was important that we kind of made these people human even as famous and as iconic that they were we wanted to find The Human Side to them and that was really important [Music]