Former ABC news reporter Bob Zelnick spent his career pursuing the truth, so when ‘Frost/Nixon’ producers took dramatic license with his involvement in David Frost’s Nixon interviews when developing the film, Zelnick had to learn to accept it, he said.
‘I think I have broken my journalistic shackles and come to embrace falsity in all of its splendors,’ Zelnick, who researched for Frost prior to Frost’s interviews with former President Richard Nixon, said.
Actors from the national stage tour of ‘Frost/Nixon’, the play on which the recent film was based,’ joined Zelnick, a Boston University journalism professor, on Thursday in the George Sherman Union to discuss their experiences, both real-world and theatrical, in front of about 30 audience members.
The play is based on the 1977 interviews between British journalist David Frost and former President Richard Nixon three years after Nixon’s resignation amidst the Watergate scandal. Nixon intended the interviews to help his tarnished public image, but he only added to his infamy when he refused to admit any criminal wrongdoing to Frost. A motion picture of the same name based on the play was released on Jan. 23.
Zelnick still remembers how nervous the studio was about the interviews, he said.
‘This project could have gone down the tubes in a big way,’ Zelnick said. ‘We would have been laughed at all the way back to Washington.’
Although the ordeal was nerve-wracking, Zelnick said the experience helped him grow as a journalist.
Stacey Keach, who joined Zelnick said playing the role of Nixon was a difficult task.
‘He was very uncomfortable around people and very self-conscious about his image,’ Keach said. ‘These are things that are revealed in the play that you cannot necessarily reveal in the original interviews.’
After extensive research of his character, Keach said he began to sympathize with Nixon.
‘He honestly believed what he was doing was right,’ Keach said ‘I don’t think he ever thought he was doing anything bad or criminal or evil. In the dark side of Nixon, I came to understand a little more, he became more human.’
Keach said he found parallels between Nixon and former President George W. Bush because Bush also believed his actions were right.
Bob Ari, another stage actor, said portraying Zelnick in the play was an easier task than portraying Nixon or Frost because the audience had higher expectations for the more famous characters.
‘My task is a lot simpler than these two because everybody thinks they have a relationship with someone like Nixon,’ Ari said. ‘It is futile to fulfill everyone’s expectations.’
The actors, who arrived over twenty minutes late, spoke to an audience mostly comprised of College of Communication students.
COM freshman Josh Cain, a staff reporter for the Daily Free Press, said he found the discussion interesting and newsworthy, even though he was required to attend for a class.
‘It’s disappointing more students do not attend these kinds of events,’ Cain said. ‘Maybe it is a problem with promotion, maybe it is a lack of interest from the students, but it would be cool if more people attended.’
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