Dennis Quaid agonized over the idea of portraying President Reagan.
The Emmy Award-winning actor questioned his decision to play the 40th president of the United States in a biopic about Reagan’s life when he was first offered the role six years ago.
“I didn’t say no, and I didn’t say yes because, really, fear,” Quaid exclusively told Fox News Digital. “Reagan was my favorite president personally, and he was also such a recognizable figure around the world, sort of like Muhammad Ali.
“Everybody knew what he looked like, sounded like, and so that was a pretty scary proposition.
“It was about feeling like I was going to be judged and feeling unworthy. He was the great communicator and all that. But I didn’t want to do an impersonation of him. I wanted to really kind of get to the core of who he was as a person. So, I put off saying yes.”
It wasn’t until Quaid visited Reagan’s Southern California ranch that he got a real idea about who the man truly was behind the decades of stories.
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Quaid remembered driving through a private gate “after going up 5 miles of the worst road in California,” when he realized that Reagan was “a humble man.”
“He was not a rich man, and there was a humility about him that was kind of the bedrock of who he was,” Quaid said. “And I felt him. I felt this core there. They had the ‘Western White House.’ It was bought by a circle of friends after he passed to keep it as it was. And their clothes — he and Nancy’s clothes were in the closet still, just like they were.”
Quaid was impressed by the small 1,100-square-foot home with “two single beds that were zip-tied together” to make one king-sized bed in one of the rooms of the modest two-bedroom house.
He noticed “three remote controls like back in the ’80s when you had to use three remote controls to get the TV to work.”
“Then, a note from Nancy, you know, on how to do it,” he said of working the remote controls. “Also just the land itself. You could see that it was him that did all the work there. You could feel it. And that’s when, after that, I said ‘Yes, I’ll do this,’ because I found a way in.”
From there, Quaid was committed to learning everything he could about the man from Dixon, Illinois, who captivated audiences as a Hollywood star, only to turn his life over to public service in his late 40s after being discharged from the United States Army Air Forces in 1945.
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“I talked to people who were close to him, you know, who knew him really well,” Quaid said. “They all said there was a part of Ronald Reagan that was unknowable, that was very private, that you just couldn’t penetrate. I think even Nancy felt that to a certain extent. You know, this is the great communicator.
“I think that part of him had to do with his faith, that to go to a place where he had that personal relationship with his maker. And I think that was his guiding light. He was a man who, he governed as president – and also governor of California – on principle, not on the winds of change, you know, or what was popular at the time or trending.
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“Sometimes, those principles were very much in the minority, but it was those principles that guided him, that he was able to win the Cold War against the Soviets.”
Quaid was inspired by Regan’s “humanness” and how Reagan “struggled just like all of us.”
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“Two things that we have in common is that we both have kind of sunny dispositions, and we’re both actors,” Quaid said. “I think Reagan kind of felt like a failure as an actor. In fact, I don’t think he got to that place that he wanted to be.”
Reagan “was never really given the chance” to get out of making B-movies at Warner, he said.
“That’s why I think he turned to being first vice president and then president of the Screen Actors Guild. That was his entry into politics and very important. I think that was his purpose.”
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“Sometimes, I think, you’ve gotta be careful about what you ask God for, because he just might give it to you, but he’ll give it to you in a way that you weren’t planning on it.”
In addition to Quaid, Jon Voight, Penelope Ann Miller and David Henrie round out the ensemble cast.
Tickets are available beginning July 4. “Reagan” releases in theaters nationwide Aug. 30.
