Dennis Quaid joins Dave Rubin to discuss his upcoming August 30th biographical film on Ronald Reagan, contrasting today's polarized Hollywood with the private era of the 1970s and 80s. Quaid details his research at the Simi Valley ranch and consultations with former Secret Service agents to portray Reagan as a flawed human accountable for Iran-Contra and AIDS responses rather than a political idol. He highlights Reagan's principled governance, friendship with Tip O'Neill, and hopes that lessons from past assassinations prevent future tragedies, arguing that modern stardom has lost its mystery due to social media and forced political alignment. [Automatically generated summary]
Well, I find that new movies squeak through these days as well.
Sound of Freedom, every once in a while I'll see a rare bust out comedy that I really like.
People back then used to complain about the movies as well, believe it or not.
I guess that's an ongoing thing, but it's definitely not like it used to be.
I will say that for one thing, the studios don't, don't make as many movies as they used to.
It used to be with every studio, their major studio, there'd be at least 40 movies, uh, you know, times that times four or five, it's about 200 movies coming out.
And now they, uh, major studio might make eight.
Uh, and they all got to be big pin poles and they seem to be the same, all dark and, uh, some kind of, you know, future metallic thing, or they have to have some kind of political bent to them that, uh, people don't want to see.
Was that always there, you think, the political bent?
I mean, people talk about, you know, the blacklists of way back when in Hollywood and everything else, and now maybe the bend goes the other way, something like that?
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Well, yeah, there was government control way back there to the 30s.
As soon as we could talk on the movies, they started, you know, regulating the political content, I think.
of it and sometimes it was kind of bent one way or the other and that's gone back and forth.
You know, during the late 40s and 50s, you know, you had the McCarthy hearings and, you know, the
red scares, which actually, it turns out, the Soviets were surreptitiously trying to take over
our unions.
Ronald Reagan was president of the Green Actors Guild back then.
He actually fought against communism.
It seems to have been, I think, a little bit more towards liberal in the past couple of decades.
But you used to have people like John Wayne, Charlton Heston, actors side by side, working with each other, having different points of view, being able to state those points of view in a dialogue or a debate, if you will.
And that has disappeared in the last couple of years.
So, you know, I don't know a ton about your politics, but, you know, we played a clip of you a couple of weeks ago on Piers Morgan, where he was kind of pushing and pulling, trying to get a little more out of you politically.
And you basically said, Trump is my guy.
Do you feel that that's still tough to do in that town, to be able to say that and feel like you're going to still get work and all that?
Like I said, I think things have started to change.
They needed to change.
Like a few years ago, you get canceled just for stating your political views.
Back when we were doing Reagan, it was attempted to cancel me a couple of times, you know, based on untruths.
Politically, I'm an independent.
I always have been.
I voted both ways over, what is it, five decades now.
And I've really kind of been that way and pretty private about my, my politics, but, uh, I felt that, uh, this, uh, election is one where everybody really needed to take a side and being vocal.
We usually, I don't like to hear actors talk about who they're for and all that stuff because, you know, what do we do for a living?
You know, and I don't know.
But I just didn't like it that our judicial system was being misused for political purposes.
And I thought it was an assault on our Constitution.
Do you find it kind of funny that so many actors feel that they should speak up?
Because I can tell you now, it seems that everyone is so overexposed that when I watch movies, I'm less inclined to enjoy movies that I know everything about the actor.
You know, I totally agree with you on that, but those days are gone.
It used to be that, let's go back to the 70s, 80s, I mean, Jack Nicholson, Robert Redford, Uh, you, you know, as far as advertising their films, they would do like maybe one interview in a magazine and they wouldn't even do talk shows.
You barely knew anything about them.
And that's really what makes movie stars because as an audience member, you can, you could watch that film and you could imprint, uh, onto that Onto that actor, your own feelings.
I've been with that, you know, that's, that's, and, uh, that's not possible.
Social media completely ruined that, I think, or ruined it.
Well, it changed it.
And there's no, there was no going, you know, now, now as an actress, especially starting now, starting out, if you're not on Instagram and I'm out there, you know, having everybody know everything about you, you're not going to get anywhere.
Well, the guy that you're doing this movie about, which comes out on August 30th, just in a couple of days from when we're airing this, uh, he was, uh, from that Hollywood and got into some political problems and all that.
Was that sort of the Genesis of your interest in him?
Was it more of the political part of him?
Was it more the acting part where were you always interested in Ronald Reagan or was this just a project that was brought to you?
I remember being in the car in 64 on our way to Galveston when he gave the speech, which we heard on the radio and my father was banging on the dashboard, you know, to get him Ronnie and stuff.
And that was, you know, what he Switched parties in 64 and we're not in campaign for Goldwater in the meantime.
That was my first real awareness of him.
Before that, I had an awareness of him as the guy who said Boaxo Soap on TV on Death Valley days and that, and also as an actor.
I, when he, I, he was all, I voted for Ronald Reagan, uh, when I was, I think I was, uh, 20 something at the time and, uh, came home and my roommate who was, uh, you know, really, you know, from the hippie generation said, who'd you vote for?
Noah Hamilton, who is the brother of Bethany Hamilton, the surfer, who was portrayed in Soul Surfer, the movie that I did.
You know, she lost an arm to a shark.
No, I called him the other day and said, hey, we've got these people that are doing a movie on Reagan and they want you to do it.
Do you have a meeting with them?
So I said, sure.
And then they weren't going through my agents because I don't think it was the most good thing, you know, uh, Reagan still, uh, in this town to, uh, to do.
Uh, and, uh, so I met with them and, uh, they offered me parts and it was Mark Joseph, who's the producer.
And I didn't say yes, but I didn't say no because, uh, One thing, it's quite daunting to him.
He was my favorite president.
He loomed large in my life.
And everyone in the world, I think, knows, like, Muhammad Ali, what he looks like, sounds like, and has an opinion of who he should be.
And there was fear involved in that.
But I took my time to think about it.
Going up to the Reagan Ranch, which was the Western White House, where you could really feel him, that's what got me to say yes.
The Reagan Ranch, though, is not open to the public.
It was the Western White House, and a group of friends bought it after his passing, and they kept it exactly as Ron and Nancy left it and their clothes are still in the closet.
In fact, you expect him to come back in 30 minutes or four.
His library with every book that he had read since he was nine years old is still intact and what hit me when I went up there and what made me say yes was because I could feel Ronald Reagan.
I realized when coming in the front gate after going up five miles of the worst road in California that Reagan was not a rich man.
And Reagan was also a very humble man.
Uh, he and Nancy, they had a king sized bed, but it was two single beds that were zip tied together.
And, uh, you know, they had a little basket there with a note from Nancy, how to operate the television with the three remotes, you know, like go kaboom kaboom.
And it's very, very simple.
Um, Uh, the house is not even 1100 square feet.
Um, this is where the queen came, uh, to visit queen of England and came to visit and very, very humble, really unassuming man in a, in a way.
You sort of hit on this already, but how do you feel about doing a role where you have to recreate someone like Ronald Reagan versus just a role where you're creating the character from scratch?
You know, on my show, I would say probably twice a month, we end the show with a clip of Reagan,
just from one of his famous speeches.
And it's not just the content of what he's saying that obviously often was written by somebody else,
but it's the way he said everything, his sense of humor, the pauses.
He had absolute mastery of public speaking, time and time again.
What was going on in his head at the time might be a very different story.
That's fair.
You know, I've played several real people, you know, from Doc Holliday and, you know, those that are not with us anymore, too, like Jimmy Morris in The Rookie, who was on the set with me.
You know, while we're, uh, while I was doing the role, uh, the entire time to Jerry Lee Lewis.
And I always try to, when it comes to real people and the difference between that and a made up characters that I feel a responsibility to tell their story from their point of view, because if someone was doing my story, that's what I would want at least.
And, um, it's finding a way in.
To know them privately, not just public persona, you know, just to do kind of wouldn't want to do an impression or impersonation of the way he walked and talked.
There was a reason why.
Inside why they walk the way they do, why they talk the way they do.
It worries that private place with him and Reagan.
I was in my research.
I come to find out that everyone, uh, to a person said that there was a private place in Reagan that, in a way, made him kind of unknowable, in a sense, that I think even Nancy may have experienced to a degree, even though she knew him better than anybody.
And a very private place.
And I think In studying him, I think that was his relationship with God in the end, that private place.
And I think that affected every decision he made and every move that he made in life.
Yeah, I read about five biographies, you know, and then there's so much on On YouTube, which is really fantastic for, uh, you know, for visually and, uh, historically, uh, for him and, you know, I lived through it, uh, those times myself and talk to quite a number of people who had personal relationships.
One of the best was, um, when I went to the Reagan ranch was his, uh, personal secret service, uh, detailed John, who was, uh, It really kind of acting as a caretaker, uh, there at the ranch, the one he, he read with him.
Uh, they picked him because he could ride horses and he read with Reagan, uh, on a daily basis and was, you know, it was with him in the, you know, from the white house to the end of his life.
I'd tell you him from about the age of 35 when he was, you know, his first years in, in Hollywood, all the way till his letter to the American people when he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's and you know, right.
As an actor, you mentioned this earlier, you're always going to be you.
You can't get away from yourself.
Even with all the mystery, if I'm watching Robert Redford in a movie, I'm watching Robert Redford do this person.
I'm never unaware that this is Robert Redford.
And that's what makes it unique, the interpretation of that.
Get under things that we had in common, you know, and I try to link that.
That's something I can understand as a human being.
And then we all as human beings can understand, you know, is by portraying their humanity.
And, uh, Ronald Reagan and I were both actors.
And we both have kind of sunny dispositions.
Uh, the way we, uh, optimistic in the way that we see things with him, you know, I, I try to get it into their, into insecurities they may have had as well, which also makes them human, you know, not just, they don't see themselves as heroes all the time.
I think Ronald Reagan, uh, one thing I can kind of relate to as well, I don't think Ronald Reagan I actually felt like he was a success as an actor because I don't think he.
He got to that place that he wanted to be as an actor.
You know, John Wayne took that slot.
Yeah.
And Ronald Reagan, you know, he was in B-movies.
And, you know, part of that didn't have to do with his talent.
It had to do with, you know, Jack Warner or whatever in the studio for one reason or another.
Just, you know, it didn't happen.
And he married Jim Wyman, who was, you know, his career was going down.
kind of fading and she won an academy award and what's that like to you know be in a relationship
where you're being transcended in in what you do which I'm sure made a lot to him but then then
then again I've been there that's why he got he became the president of the Screen Actors Guild.
First of all, I suppose, then the president of the Screen Actors Guild.
Let's tell you the truth.
It's not a job that everybody honors for.
You know, actor, that's something you do when your career starts to fade.
And, uh, and you know, that's where I think God had a purpose for him and that's where he was leading him.
And also, but more than that, there was, Carter even gave a speech about the malaise that was in this country.
And very similar circumstances.
And that's what, which I think would be an interesting kind of note and a reflection for people seeing the movie today.
As well.
But the thing about Ronald Reagan as a president was he governed by principles, not by the issues of the day.
There were certain principles that were set, and I'd like to see a return to that, actually, because if you govern by principles, it doesn't matter if you're Democrat, Republican, in the long term.
It represents our nation and not just the whim of the pop culture.
It's so interesting you say that because that is what I've been saying I think the opportunity is for Trump assuming he gets the second term here.
It's like he has now created this wide swath of people from rappers and UFC guys to traditional conservatives and everything in between that if you govern by principles and you have all those people that that's almost all of us actually.
In terms, it puts it in terms that everybody aspires to.
Yeah.
And, uh, I think they've definitely seen a 2.0 album with him.
People forget that, uh, you know, back in the, uh, back in the eighties and the nineties, uh, Trump played mentor to a lot of upcoming really rich rap artists.
And, and, uh, People coming up that he could mentor to, and he's always been able to walk in every strata of society and communicate with people.
And Reagan definitely had that.
I don't like to, in a way, compare Reagan with Trump, because they are both Different styles and different ways, and I don't want to take away from either of them.
But times are very similar to what they were then.
Everybody, I mean, I remember the day Kennedy was shot, you know, in detail.
It's, it's how vivid those memories are.
And for all of us as Americans, uh, we'll, we'll never forget, uh, what happened Saturday.
It's, uh, it's a searing experience and how close we came to that same tragedy that, you know, uh, when Kennedy, When John Kennedy was shot in 63, and then Martin Luther King, and then Bobby Kennedy, and this is all within five years, I think it paralyzed us.
I think For at least 15, 20 years as a nation, it went a long way toward deteriorating our confidence as a nation.
You know, we had Watergate that was thrown in there.
And people had a mistrust of government, you know, and there was government conspiracy going on and stuff.
Once again, the very kind of the same issues that were present then as they are now.
We got to not have to experience that kind of tragedy.
Is it in the movie, the famous moment, I think it was his first speech back from the assassination attempt, when there was the loud bang in the back of the room, and what was his great line?
I had at least a year and a half, as it turned out, to prepare for the role.
There's lots of stuff, like I said, on YouTube.
So in private, I would, uh, just started doing The Voice and then I just kind of lived with it.
I would just kind of do it all day.
Not to, you know, just to myself and then to, you know, kind of, uh, my family.
And then, you know, before I take it out there, because I didn't want it to be an impersonation.
And also, Uh, you know, the younger Reagan is, his voice is kind of blue up here.
You know, that's because we all, our voice changes throughout our lives.
So, getting all that right.
And the other thing was Reagan's crooked smile, which was a little small detail.
But I think had a lot to do with his personality and what was going on on the inside.
He had a crooked smile that, you know, I think it had to do with him a fight or some injury or something in his life that damaged the nerves not to be able to to bring up both sides of the mouth.
No, no, in fact, you know, I didn't, I didn't want it to be a love letter.
I did want it to be his life.
I didn't want to be from his point of view.
But, you know, he always was accountable.
To himself and to the American people as well, for what he did was take Iran-Contra, for instance, which is a very uncomfortable time, you know, in the Reagan years.
He was a delegator, delegated a lot of things to get it done.
And, you know, I believe him and it was coming to the American people and telling them what happened.
And from his mind and his heart, that I think saved him from being impeached.
He was in danger of that.
Also, I don't think he responded to AIDS as well as he could have.
I think that was putting a lot down, I think.
He did come to, it was kind of a, that was a process, I think, for him, but his initial response
was, I don't think, was something to be proud of.
And...
I think Nancy helped him a lot with that along the way.
Because part of the reason that I do play those clips often to end the show of him is because even though some of them are 30, 40, 50 years ago, they capture something that we seem to have forgotten.
And it's something that I think we're both in agreement we need to kind of reignite in this country.
Maybe there's an opportunity with Trump right now, but what do you think he would make of just sort of the way things seem to be in this strange moment?
You know, he and Tip O'Neill, who's the Speaker of the House, you know, staunch Democrat, and Reagan, were bitter political enemies from 9 to 5.
But they said at the beginning, they both made an agreement that, you know, from 9 to 5, we're going to slug it out, you know, as far as what our vision of America is.
But after 5 o'clock, we're just a couple Irishmen having a beer.
And they really got to know each other as people.
And that's where...
That's where political change happens.
That's where spiritual change happens.
That's where we come together, united, and we speak as one voice.
That's what the Founding Fathers really intended.
It was about compromise.
Compromise was one of the first words that they talked about when it came to the Declaration of Independence in the Constitution.
Everybody had to compromise.
But it was together that we did it.
And, um, Reagan had a very special thing that he would say, you know, that one of his staff made note of, of Tip O'Neill, that, you know, he was like kind of the enemy.
And he said, well, he, uh, he might be, uh, he's an eight, he's an might be a 20% enemy, but he's an 80% friend.
By the way, about 15 minutes ago, it just popped into my head that I listed out all your great movies, and I didn't say Frequency, which is also one of my favorite movies of all time.