Hail to the chief

Frank Langella takes his award-winning work in "Frost/Nixon" from Broadway to the big screen. Get ready for an "intellectual 'Rocky.'"

By Kevin Maynard

Who would have thought that after more than four decades of acting, Frank Langella would become an "It" boy? The 70-year-old master thespian, known for playing moody, menacing types, reprises his Tony Award-winning performance in director Ron Howard's film adaptation of "Frost/Nixon," the true story of the dishonored 37th president's series of confrontational interviews with British talk-show host David Frost (Michael Sheen).

If it sounds like a stale history lesson, think again. Critics are calling the fast-paced docudrama an intellectual Rocky, raving that Langella delivers a knockout performance that could spell Oscar gold.

On a rare day off (the actor currently stars on Broadway in a revival of "A Man for All Seasons"), Langella talked about making a "comeback," being known as Dracula, dating Whoopi Goldberg (yup, they were once a couple) and playing Nixon.

In addition to "Frost/Nixon," you're doing a lot of big Hollywood movies now, like next year's The Box with Cameron Diaz. Would you consider this a comeback?

No, I was never really a big enough film star to call what's happening to me now a comeback. This period is wonderful. I don't take it for granted.

What do you think of the Oscar buzz about you?
I don't much pay attention to it. You get to a certain point in life and you realize it doesn't do you any good to think about things over which you have no control. When you're young, you think, "Maybe I should have this important agent, maybe I should get in the room with that important director and hire people to push me here or there." It doesn't really work out that way.

What did you come away with after playing Nixon?
I have a more compassionate understanding of him. I don't have any sympathy for his actions. But he was like you and me and everyone else -- a member of the human family. He has been regarded as a cartoon, and it was very important to me that I not do that. There's a father there, there's a husband, there's a very sad little boy.

I heard the role of Nixon was going to go to Jack Nicholson for the film.
Yes! I had heard many names. The two most obvious actors were Jack and Warren [Beatty]. But -- and I mean this without any disingenuousness -- I was completely fine with the fact that I wasn't going to play it. I just understand this profession.

The last time you took a role from the stage to the big screen was "Dracula" in the late '70s. Any memories from playing the prince of darkness?
In the last shot of the movie, I put the cape down, and I knew I would never pick it up again, because almost no other actor who played that role successfully has survived it. I don't even narrate or appear on shows that are related to the occult or the vampire world. But for a time, it caused a sensation. It was sort of like being Elvis for a couple of years. I definitely had a lot of female admirers. Now I get old ladies in walkers. [Laughs.]

When you dated Whoopi Goldberg from 1995 to 2000, was it tough to be in the tabloids?
It wasn't tough; it just wasn't interesting to me. It's very comfortable for me that, when you're watching "Frost/Nixon," you don't know me, as an actor, as anyone except Richard Nixon. Or Dracula, or even Perry White [in 2006's "Superman Returns"]. And that's why I prefer to stay off of the talk shows. I'm not a celebrity, and I don't want to be. And I just don't like to cut ribbons.