Dating David Frost

Are there pieces of the movie that are especially accurate?

How difficult it was to get the financing was absolutely true and eventually I do remember that the financing all got together somehow—the stress of getting programs together without money was very accurate.

All the sets and the costumes and the portrayal of the period and everyone debating was very accurate. I met with the costume designer and he had spent a lot of time making sure my character had nice clothes, and you know they did a lot of research and they did a really good job.

How involved were you in making the movie?

I didn’t speak to Peter Morgan before he wrote the play at all. And then when it went on in London, I contacted the theater and subsequently had dinner with Peter and went to see the play and met Michael and Frank. I did talk to Peter more about everything that had gone in Beverly Hills and the Laguna afterwards, because I’ve become friends with him. I met Ron Howard once, and had dinner with Rebecca Hall [who plays Caroline in the movie] once. She is a terrific actress, a very good Shakespearean actress. I couldn’t be happier or more that pleased that played me. I only wish I’d been as beautiful as she is.

Tell me about having drinks with Nixon.

As I remember Nixon, he had huge great head and was very clumsy and kept falling backwards. And he certainly had a roving eye for women. David and I and Nixon would have drinks together, three or four times. The end of the movie, which is the scene with caviar, and Nixon asked if we would like fine wine, and I said I loved fine wine—that was spot-on. He was always saying things like “Why you don’t marry that girl, she lives in Monte Carlo and you can live tax-free.”

It was very sad when we left and finally said good bye to Nixon. I thought his life ended up in loneliness and exile. At the time when we drove away there’d been so much that had gone on—so much excitement and anticipation. I wasn’t sympathetic, just sad to go on and say goodbye and realize Nixon’s life was nothing and we had a lot to look forward to and he’d already had his life.