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topicnews · September 4, 2024

“Reagan” star Dennis Quaid on why he misses the “liberal Republicans”

“Reagan” star Dennis Quaid on why he misses the “liberal Republicans”

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In the fall of 1980, Dennis Quaid was 26 years old and had just returned from the election when he was greeted by his curious roommate.

“He asked who I voted for, and when I told him Ronald Reagan, he said, ‘That’s it, you’re kicked out of the hippie scene,'” Quaid says, grinning broadly. “I handed in my hippie ID right there.”

And now Quaid, who says he has “always been an independent” voter, is playing the man he voted for twice and calls “my favorite president.”

Quaid, 70, plays the Gipper in “Reagan” (in theaters Friday), a biopic that spans Reagan’s entire life and focuses on two of the actor-turned-politician’s defining achievements: his lasting marriage to Nancy Reagan and his struggle with Mikhail Gorbachev that led to the end of the Cold War.

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The film relies heavily on Penelope Ann Miller’s portrayal of Nancy as a fierce protector of her husband and Jon Voigt’s role as retired KGB agent Viktor Petrovich, who narrates the film as an old man looking back on his nation’s greatest enemy.

Although “Reagan” briefly addresses the intense hostility that Reagan’s presidency provoked in liberal circles, the film is firmly aimed at his fans, who included select attendees at last month’s Republican National Convention who were given an advance screening of the film.

For Dennis Quaid, searching for the inner self of Ronald Reagan meant looking at his hidden sides

But although Quaid was a lifelong fan of the 40th US president, he was initially hesitant to take on the role of Reagan, who died in 2004 after a years-long battle with Alzheimer’s disease.

“First of all, I didn’t want to just imitate him because he’s one of the most famous people in the world,” Quaid says. “And it was really a feeling of worthlessness. I also thought my feelings for him would cloud my portrayal of him. I wanted to go beyond this public persona to the human being.”

Once the actor warmed to the idea that he could pull off the feat, he dove into research that ranged from long conversations with people who knew Reagan to watching countless videos on the Internet. “I got a little lucky with the hair I basically already had, plus a little bit of color,” he says.

Despite Reagan’s own acting past and oratorical talent – the film recreates his witty comment from the 1984 debate that he would not take advantage of the “youth and inexperience” of his challenger Walter Mondale – there seemed to be a secret surrounding Reagan as well, according to Quaid.

“Everyone I spoke to said he was impenetrable, something that even Nancy experienced,” he says. “There was a wall, perhaps because her father was an alcoholic, you had to hide your deepest feelings, intimacy was perhaps a problem.”

Quaid’s breakthrough came when he was invited to visit Reagan’s fabled Rancho del Cielo, the “White House of the West,” on 1,600 acres of rolling hills outside Santa Barbara. (The ranch was purchased by the conservative nonprofit Young America’s Foundation in 1998.)

“It’s not open to the public, but I had to go,” he says. “You take Highway 101 north, then take the exit and drive about 5 miles on one of the worst roads in America until you get to this gate. And that’s when I knew who this man was. He was a humble man. You can see it in all the work he did on the ranch himself, in the clothes that are still hanging in the closet. You can see it in the 1,000-square-foot house, in the two twin beds that they tied together with zip ties to make one bed.”

Ronald Reagan was “everyone’s father, for better or for worse,” says Dennis Quaid

For Quaid, Reagan was “everybody’s father, at least to us baby boomers, for better or for worse. With every father, you either idolized him or you rebelled against him. I think that’s how he was for many of us, and that’s why he’s still remembered today.”

When asked about the current political landscape, Quaid remains cautious.

“The circumstances of that 1980 election (in which Reagan defeated incumbent Democrat Jimmy Carter) seem similar to those of today. Then, as now, people said America was in decline, there were high interest rates and hostages in the Middle East. And Reagan came along and said, ‘We’re going down this path. America’s best days are still ahead of us.'”

When asked if the “Reagan” production was partisan given the subject matter, Quaid shook his head. “No, I would say at least half of our crew on the production were Democrats. And remember, Reagan was a Democrat for a long time before he became a Republican.”

Quaid does not comment specifically on the merits of today’s presidential candidates Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, but says: “America is getting the president it deserves. They are a reflection of the times and the people.”

But Quaid laments the rancor and sharp divisions in politics today. “I really long for the days when there were liberal Republicans and conservative Democrats,” he says. “I hope we can recognize that we need each other, and that in this way we can keep each other from going too far in one direction or the other.”

He remembers a scene from “Reagan” in which the president greets visitors shortly after surviving an assassination attempt in 1981.

“After Nancy, Tip (O’Neill, the Democratic Speaker of the House) was the first to see him. As Reagan once said to him, ‘Tip, we may be political enemies during the day, but after 6 o’clock we’re just two Irish guys drinking a beer.'”

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