Marching forward with this month’s theme of monologues from AWO (Actors Without Oscars), I’m also hitching it up to the site-wide Sherlock Holmes week by presenting a monologue from an actor who has not yet won an Oscar, and also once played Sherlock Holmes himself (first on film, then on stage) – Frank Langella.
Certainly that’s how writer Peter Morgan played it out when he dramatised the events around the interviews, and the interviews themselves, for his 2006 playFrost/Nixon, which was subsequently turned into the 2008 film Frost/Nixon by director Ron Howard. And for the film, Howard kept the two actors who had starred in the original play: Michael Sheen as David Frost and Frank Langella as Richard Nixon.
Part of the beauty of the role of Richard Nixon in this film, at least for the purposes of this series, is that it gives itself over very easily to monologue. During the real interviews between Frost and the former president, Nixon would often ramble on long, self-serving stories about himself and his family, dodging important questions and eating up time. This type of savvy threatened to bolster his own image, whilst tanking that of his supposed inquisitor. However, it is ultimately this penchant for long-windedness and defiant egotism, not to mention his own dismissal of his opponent, which reveals his weakness.
Setting the scene: After weeks of work and three interviews, Frost’s confidence is at its lowest. Chastised by his colleagues, and with only four days before the final interview, he is left alone in his hotel room when he receives a phone call from Nixon himself. Making a final duplicitous effort at deflating Frost’s self-esteem, Nixon inadvertently talks himself into revealing something very important about his own character…