Aug. 30, 2024 - Epoch Times
08:47
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| Time | Text |
|---|---|
| What does it take to prepare for a role like this? | |
| I can't even imagine. | |
| I basically, uh, I had a year to prepare and, uh, I basically just talked like Reagan, uh, around the house, my four kids, my wife. | |
| I've lived with that for a long time. | |
| It goes, I just wanted to learn it and forget it, you know? | |
| But more importantly, it was about, uh, doing it beyond impersonation, you know, and get to the human being behind the public persona. | |
| What would you see as the big message in the film for you? | |
| Character, ethics, truth. | |
| He was such a quiet man and held such a big stick. | |
| I'm 76 years old and I have never seen this country in such dire straits as we are right now. | |
| I just want to say the most important thing is to vote. | |
| I think that we all have a purpose in life. | |
| that the family can have to make the making of a president. | |
| A good man with his foundation, in the word of God, makes a great president. | |
| I think that we all have a purpose in life, that whatever you are, whoever you are, whatever you're doing, that there's something you're supposed to do before you leave the planet. | |
| And it's hard to find that. | |
| In Reagan's case, he doesn't find it until he's 69 years old. | |
| So that gives the rest of us hope that we can find it at some point in our lives. | |
| The thing that you were put here to do, as his mother says. | |
| I think it's a wonderful educational opportunity for young people to get involved in exactly what's going on in our country today and I think no better opportunity than coming to a movie premiere like this, seeing young people on the red carpet, seeing young people attending the movie and really promoting it. | |
| I think that this is once again an educational opportunity for our young people to really get involved and voice their own opinions. | |
| Historical movies right now are really important, especially ones that do illustrate the massive issues with socialism, and the way that countries can fall into it so easily, and the way that Ronald Reagan had to fight for it all those years ago, and peace through strength is a foreign policy assessment, and I think that we can do that again now. | |
| Reagan found a way to take ideals and principles that are very important to conservatives and mainstream them. | |
| While the left wouldn't give him credit for mainstreaming them, the proof is in the pudding. | |
| Two terms as president, followed by his vice president having a single term. | |
| Eight years later, his vice president's son served two terms. | |
| That's an unbelievable political legacy that should give hope to all conservatives who see the film. | |
| We joke that the movie took so long to make, but really the timing I think is perfect because we're living in a moment where there's a great deal of confusion in the political order. | |
| Not just between the left and the right, but within the right. | |
| And so what I want to see is the story of a man who Transformed and really rejuvenated American politics at a time when we thought we were in a never-ending national malaise. | |
| And we might feel like we're in that moment right now. | |
| There are a lot of parallels between the 80s and today. | |
| And so what I'm looking for is an important political virtue, happens to be a theological virtue, which is a little bit of hope. | |
| Definitely, especially for my generation, for sure. | |
| I feel like we could take away a lot from this movie, but it's truly enlightening, and I hope it kind of just instills hope and just some motivation to make some changes. | |
| President Reagan was a great communicator, and I think that everybody can learn something from the way he got along with his business and communicated his ideas to the American public. | |
| Very much like being in the music business. | |
| Tell me a little bit about the role you play in this film. | |
| I play James Baker, who basically campaigned against Reagan until Reagan won. | |
| And then Reagan saw the value in him and made him chief of staff. | |
| And James Baker was a really great negotiator, a great navigator of the political seas. | |
| And it was apparently a big challenge for me to play him because he was a moderate. | |
| I'm not a moderate. | |
| You know, I'm really excited to see a bunch of our greatest actors tell the story of one of our most iconic presidents. | |
| Do you see a message in the film? | |
| I do. | |
| I really appreciate it. | |
| I think this movie is so good. | |
| All of our Americans, especially people my age, get to realize how good Reagan was and to appreciate that and to think about it. | |
| It definitely does have a meaning. | |
| I'm a true American, so I really appreciate getting to represent. | |
| And what do you hope will happen with this screening? | |
| I guess the timing seems particularly poignant right now. | |
| I think it does too, because so many people are talking about how do we preserve our freedoms and liberty? | |
| How do we make certain that people appreciate that this is the land of opportunity and preserving access to that American dream? | |
| I'm like a lot of moms and grandmoms. | |
| I want my kids and grandkids to dream those big dreams. | |
| And it's up to us to give them the opportunity to make them come true. | |
| It really is a very special film. | |
| And I think people this generation, a lot of kids from the first screening I saw, It's a good time, I think, for the message of this movie. | |
| I never knew that. | |
| It seems like that's happening now. | |
| So it's informative, but it's dramatically, it's so emotional, and Quaid used to win an Academy Award for this. | |
| It's a good time, I think, for the message of this movie. | |
| I would say in our test audiences, people respond the most to Reagan and Tip O'Neill getting along, being functional, functioning government. | |
| He visits him in the hospital after he's shot, and they have some words. | |
| People rarely react to that the most, so I think there's a yearning for that in the country. | |
| You don't have to agree, but at least do your jobs and get along. | |
| Well, there's that line, right? | |
| After 6 p.m., I forget exactly how it goes. | |
| Yeah, that's the one. | |
| People are yearning for that again. | |
| That's not impossible. | |
| We should be able to aspire to that. | |
| I was hired to write the first draft in 2010. | |
| So I've been on this one for 14 years. | |
| And it has gone through generation after generation. | |
| Our times have literally changed within the time, obviously, from think about 2010 to now. | |
| So how you attack a story, even a historical story, it must have a sort of Reflection to its time. | |
| And so, that was a big part of it. | |
| I think more than anything else, and it was a band of brothers. | |
| We all had the things we wanted. | |
| My original draft was 212 pages. | |
| Can't do that in a feature film, so it's been hard to choose. | |
| Well, we can't do that, but let's try this. | |
| So, it's been a labor of love, for sure. | |
| You've put together an unbelievable film. | |
| I just wanted to tell you that. | |
| Thank you so much. | |
| Well, tonight's been a huge celebration. | |
| But it's really a celebration for Music City. | |
| Not only being executive producers, but producing all the music in the film. | |
| I mean, with Clint Black, Alice Cooper, Gene Simmons, Travis Tritt, Alabama. | |
| So it's a Nashville celebration. | |
| Music City celebration. | |
| We were cast as the band for the scene, and then we found out which song we would be performing on camera, so we went ahead and recorded our own version and brought it to set. | |
| And the movie liked our version and licensed it, so pretty cool. | |
| Yeah! | |
| Well that's fantastic! | |
| We took this small opportunity and turned it into a big one. | |
| To me, the message of the film is... | |
| is really how to interact with people. | |
| And he brought it to a global arena and how, you know, start conversation. | |
| This is how we solve problems rather than being divisive and angry. | |
| That starts wars. | |
| So I think a big part of this film is teaching people how to have conversations, talk, and hash things out. | |
| I kind of feel I was probably destined to play this role. | |
| Looking back, you know, I really had a streak of fear go up my spine when I was offering it because I felt unworthy and also afraid because everybody has an opinion on Reagan. | |
| He's one of the most famous people recognizable in the world. | |
| But that fear is usually a sign that I should do that because it takes me out of my comfort zone. | |
| That's what God does too, you know. | |
| You gotta be careful what you ask God for, because he just might give it to you. | |
| Because he usually gives it to you in a way where you go, oh, no, I didn't mean that. | |
| No, but that's such a fantastic message to be sharing with people. | |
| I mean, you yourself right now, when you feel the fear, that means you should do something. | |
| Yeah, fear's actually a really great motivator. | |
| Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! |
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