Reagan had been in office a mere 70 days. "The Day Reagan Was Shot," reveals the behind-the-scenes activity through the inherent chaos of the twenty-four hours that followed.

The film, which is executive produced by Dan Halsted and Oliver Stone, stars Richard Dreyfuss as Secretary of State Alexander Haig, Richard Crenna as President Ronald Reagan, Holland Taylor as Nancy Reagan, Colm Feore as Caspar 'Cap" Weinberger, Michael Murphy as Michael Deaver, Kenneth Welsh as James Baker, Yannick Bisson as Buddy Stein, Leon Pownall as Ed Meese, Robert Bockstael as Dick Allen, Christopher Lloyd as John Hinckley and Michael Greene as George Bush.

The film was written and directed by Cyrus Nowrasteh. Recently some of the cast sat down along with the writer-director to discuss "The Day Reagan Was Shot."

QUESTION: How accurate is this movie? How did you find out the nformation?

CYRUS NOWRASTEH: : The movie is an exposé that shows what really happened behind the scenes. Much of the information is on the public record, and I found new information via the Freedom of Information Act. A lot of stuff is Secret Service files and once you just start to piece it all together you realize we came close that day to losing the president, and to getting into a nuclear confrontation.

Q: Did you take any dramatic liberties?

NOWRASTEH: No, it all came from my research, sources and testimony from different accounts of participants. If there's any license, like an argument occurred in the Situation Room about a certain subject, I had to recreate that argument. But I know who the principals are and what their positions were.

Q: Mr. Dreyfuss, could you talk about getting inside General Haig for this part?

RICHARD DREYFUSS: A lot of playing him was playing the kind of mythic image we all have of him. Some of it came from reading his own version of his life, and some came from the oodles of material that were, in a sense, "anti-Haig" about that day and about his career. The most interesting thing about this script is that, in a funny way, it's very balanced. It's very fair -- the incompetence and pomposity is spread all around pretty equally.

Q: Ms. Taylor, can you discuss playing Nancy Reagan?

HOLLAND TAYLOR: The Nancy Reagan I was playing in this film is the Nancy Reagan who is an astonishingly devoted wife and partner in what is surely one of the great love stories that we know about in our age. This is a great marriage these two people had - have still, indeed. The woman that I was playing in the 24-hour period had only one thing on her mind: is my husband going to live, and can I be with him, can I get to be with him. This is not Mrs. Reagan, the political animal or the social animal.

Q: This is for Holland Taylor and Richard Crenna -- did you watch any tapes of Nancy and the former President, or are these two characters just ingrained in what we've been seeing over TV for so many years?

RICHARD CRENNA: Well the characters were so well situated. I had met President Reagan a number of times and spent time with him socially, so I was aware of certain mannerisms and voice patterns that he had. But Cyrus what I wanted to do is an impression of Ronald Reagan, to try to capture the essence of the man, rather a carbon copy of him. And as far as Holland is concerned, I fell in love with her, so I guess that she must have done the job that Nancy did on Ronnie.

TAYLOR: He never misses an opportunity to charm, which is certainly what Mr. Reagan never did also. While he was in office and when they'd be working down the hall from each other, he would send her little sweet notes and jests, or he'd doodle a little cartoon or send her some little gift. He was an incredibly romantic, doting husband. I, like Richard, did not have any intention of trying to impersonate her. She's really a very straightforward lady with a very beautiful smile, and I also just tried to give an impression of her. I did watch tapes of her quite to just get a feeling about her.

Q: Mr. Dreyfuss, when you're playing such a character who is a real person, and also is very over the top, how do you find the balance between playing real character and chewing scenery?

DREYFUSS: Well, we knew that General Haig had a volcanic anger, and we knew when and where. And he's a human being, he's not bigger or smaller than that. So I played what was there.

Q: Did you watch the "I'm in charge" tape a lot? Was that an important element of capturing this fellow?

DREYFUSS: Yes. I watched it, I don't know how many times. I felt sorry for him. I think the sin is a venal sin, it's not a mortal sin. But given those circumstances, and given the kind of Machiavellian crew that was behind him, he wasn't going to survive a gaffe like that. It really is quite an amazing moment, but it's not the worst thing that someone ever did.

Q: Do you think that that this movie even might have been made if but for that one phrase? Here the President of the United States was shot, and almost everybody's most vivid memory is "I'm in charge now."

DREYFUSS: Well what's so theatrically interesting about the moment, about the day, is that it ties it all up in some weird, wonderful way. The thing that's so impressive about the script is that everything in this story is true. And Cyrus doesn't go into any kind of theatrical craziness to tell this terribly weird story. But the story is made complete by what this guy said, and how hell came down on him. Whether it would have been made without that, I don't know. But certainly it was the - it was a wonderful centerpiece.

Q: Did your perspective of the press and how they treated the Reagans or various people involved in this story evolve through the making of this film?

CRENNA: Well, I'm sure that they presented the story as they saw it and I don't think there was any attempt on the part of any of the newscasters or print people to shade the story in any way. The one thing that we do know from the extensive research that Cyrus did, is how close Reagan was to dying, and we did not know that as a nation. I think, it was a good thing that we, as a nation, were not aware of the severity of hi injury at that time, and let the nation kind of pull itself together and get a focus on what was going to happen next. And the threat of a nuclear attack, or a response to a supposed nuclear attack, was very real at that time. And that's a very important part of the story which I had never realized before. I didn't realize that we were that close to pushing the button.

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