Peter Morgan describes his historical fiction, tellingly, as, ‘the thing I do’. Anyone who has seen his films The Queen or The Last King of Scotland, or his play Frost/Nixon, now a Ron Howard film, will know what he means. What Morgan does is dramatise events in the lives of people whose fame means we already presume a fair amount about them.
‘I agree it’s a risky path to tread,’ he concedes. ‘There are people who are bound journalistically to a code of ethics that means they can’t quote something that isn’t sourced, whereas what I do is entirely unsourced. I effectively fictionalise history and yet somehow aim at a greater truth. It’s a wonderful paradox.’
In conversation, Morgan displays what’s required for his line of work: charm and a thick skin. Morgan believes he gives Frost (played by Michael Sheen) a comparatively easy ride; that both play and film may give more of a victory to Frost in those televised interviews – for which Frost personally paid the ex-president $1 million – than he deserves. Morgan says the Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, ‘rang me up and said, “What the f*** are you doing? Frost never got anything out of those interviews.”’
Frost actually elicited an admission of guilt and an apology from Nixon over Watergate. But what Morgan does is concentrate on the initial failure and ultimate success of the interviews, which gives a dramatic arc similar to a sports movie, although neither of the men comes across as wholly sympathetic.
‘Before writing the play I met Frost and told him I was independently painting a portrait of him. I said I needed his help in speaking to some of the people involved and that when it was finished he’d need to show it to his friends and ask what they thought. I said to him, “I doubt you’ll ever like what I’m going to do. But maybe loved ones will persuade you to like it.” I took liberties that I think probably offended him. But I think overall I couldn’t have written it without that level of directness.’
It’s his conscience that defines Morgan’s work against the many inferior dramas that take hysterical liberties with real lives without offering anything intelligent in return. We talk about Oliver Stone’s W., which Morgan hasn’t seen, but which is equally responsible with the facts. But one thing that differentiates that film and Frost/Nixon is the unique dramatic perspective that Morgan lends to the disgraced ex-president. While Stone rattles through Bush’s life entertainingly enough, Morgan studies Nixon, played with lugubrious charm by Frank Langella, through the prism of four interviews. ‘It means you’re coming at it from a relatively oblique angle,’ says Morgan. ‘Sometimes if biography is too head-on, it can feel too obvious.’
Also, Stone rushed to finish his film while Bush was still in the White House; 29 years separate the Frost/Nixon interviews from Morgan’s play. By then, Nixon had been dead 12 years. ‘Stephen Frears and I have thought a lot about this; we feel you need hindsight.’ He and Frears also plan to return to the territory of The Deal, their 2003 BBC TV drama about the rivalry between Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, which they revisited in The Queen. He’s written a third film, too, about the relationship between Blair and Bill Clinton, which Frears will direct and in which Sheen will star again (‘he’s made it his part now, hasn’t he?’).
Some critics have assumed that Morgan’s portrait of Nixon is a stab at current affairs: that it’s a metaphor for the current US administration. Morgan bats this away as nonsense, although he admits it’s easy to draw parallels between Iraq and Nixon’s talk of US intervention in Vietnam and Cambodia. Still, he thinks there’s something much more pertinent to be gained from reconsidering Nixon.
‘He prided himself on discipline and thought. Whatever his foreign policy or his personal failings, he was a man for whom office was a heavy responsibility. It was a leader’s duty to be as great a man as he could. And that included reading history and the writings of leaders and philosophers round the clock. After this Sarah Palin nightmare; this appealing to the lowest possible denominator, hopefully the Republican Party will expel these people and expel this from their mission statement. There is no inherent contradiction between being right wing and being intelligent.’
Does Morgan find producers now try to second-guess what may interest him? ‘I think so. An American film company recently asked me to write about Hugh Hefner. Ostensibly, one might say, ‘Ah, yes, that’s a good fit.’ But I met Hefner briefly, and I couldn’t connect with him. Anyway, I don’t want to do much more of this sort of thing. I’ve been writing more fiction.’
Frost/Nixon is released in cinemas on 26th February
