Can Dennis Quaid do Bill Clinton?
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By now you’ve probably read the news -- first posted here in Variety -- that Dennis Quaid will be playing Bill Clinton in ‘Special Relationship,’ Peter Morgan’s latest political drama, this one about the complicated 1990s-era relationship between Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair. (The film, an HBO-bound follow-up to Morgan’s Oscar-nominated ‘The Queen,’ has Michael Sheen reprising his role as Tony Blair and Julianne Moore playing Hillary Clinton.) According to First Post, Quaid beat out a quartet of impressive rivals for the Clinton gig -- Russell Crowe (who probably has the perfect Clintonian physique), Alec Baldwin (who has previous experience playing presidents), Philip Seymour Hoffman (perhaps a bit too much of that Clintonian girth) and Tim Robbins (certainly ideologically appropriate).
But what fascinates me about the choice of Quaid is that he’s become the go-to guy to play prominent real-life characters. After all, who else has the chameleon-like dexterity to play the trail-blazing astronaut Gordon Cooper (in ‘The Right Stuff’), do a terrific turn as Jerry Lee Lewis (in the not-so-terrific ‘Great Balls of Fire’), handle Doc Holliday in ‘Wyatt Earp,’ do Sam Houston in ‘The Alamo’ and roam the sidelines as Syracuse football coach Ben Schwartzwalder in last year’s ‘The Express.’
What’s even more impressive, in terms of range, is that Quaid also played a barely-thinly-veiled version of George W. Bush in 2006’s ‘American Dreamz,’ which is a feat of actorly gymnastics unequaled in modern times, unless you want to count Sean Penn going from playing Harvey Milk to Larry in ‘The Three Stooges.’
To get a critic’s take on this casting, I called up film essayist-historian David Thomson, who is a big Morgan fan and has an especially sharp eye for the volatile chemistry involved in casting choices.
‘Outside of Jeff Bridges, it’s hard to think of a more underestimated American actor than Quaid,’ Thomson says. ‘Morgan has been so smart about his casting decisions that if he thinks Quaid can do it, I’m with him. If you go back and look at Quaid’s performance as Gordo Cooper in ‘The Right Stuff,’ he has a very Clintonian-style bounce and interior cockiness. He’s also great in ‘The Big Easy,’ where he really captures that racy, New Orleans-style sleaziness, which isn’t that far east of Clinton territory.’
Thomson laughs. ‘Let’s say my fingers are crossed, but my thumbs are up. I’m certainly more hopeful about Quaid as Clinton than I am about that line-up of actors for ‘The Three Stooges.’ ‘
Of course, the bar is high when it comes to capturing the shape-shifting essence of Bill Clinton. Just watch a pro at work:
Peter Morgan: The man behind ‘Frost/Nixon’