1.Jack Nicholson - declined
2.Warren Beatty - declined
3.Tom Hanks - declined
4.Anthony Hopkins - accepted
Jack would have been good, I wonder why he declined. Tom Hanks seems like he would have been too young so alot of make up would have been involved to make him look older. Hopkins did good though. I bet Tommy Lee Jones could have nailed it as well.
Jack usually plays himself... He would NOT have made a good Nixon
shareRofl, all 4 choices are bad.
But I think Hopkins did better than any of the other 3 would have.
The thing is Nixon was such a unique character no one has ever really been able to do him. Probably never will.
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Warren Beatty would have been good, but he'd butt heads with Stone so much it would be crazy. Hopkins did an amazing job.
It's funny, but Stone's really wanted to work with Beatty, it seems. He tried to cast him at least three different times before, most recently for George H. W. Bush in "W".
I heard Robin Williams was also considered. Wouldn't that have been interesting?
For a time, Hanks was also attached to a Nixon-related project (being written by Robert Bolt) that HBO was developing prior to Oliver Stone's Nixon coming.
"All right then! Nobody told you to stop working!"
Hanks would have been wonderful but Hopkins is genius.
shareGranted he was too young at the time, but why is Jim Carrey overlooked in discussions of current actors who could have best portrayed Nixon?
shareIts rather common with lots of films that actors decline roles. However it would had been weird to see Hanks in the role.
Its that man again!!
I'm stuck on Walter Matthau for this part.
shareoh god, yes...they were close in age too.
actually, maybe that would make matthau too old by 1995?
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"say jim! whooo! that's a bad outFIT!" ~ superman (1978)
Matthau always looked about the same age to me so I think he could have gotten away with it!
shareI loved Walter Matthau, but he was too old in 1995. He was also a comedic actor for the most part.
Hopkins wasn't great, but he was by far the best choice for this exceptionally demanding role. I suppose we should be grateful for this performance.
I'm a civilian, I'm not a trout
Guess he was 7 years younger than Dick, so maybe if Oliver could have filmed it in 80 or 81 it would have been ideal, except Oliver had hardly directed movies by that point.
shareTom Hanks is more versatile than the first three. Any one of them could have done a great job. Hopkins's style played well into the dark, surreal themes of the production.
I choose to believe what I was programmed to believe