Nixon (film) - Cast

Cast

• Anthony Hopkins as Richard Nixon.
  The studio did not like Stone's choice to play Nixon. They wanted Tom Hanks or Jack Nicholson — two of Stone's original choices. The director briefly considered Gene Hackman, Robin Williams, Gary Oldman and Tommy Lee Jones. Stone met with Warren Beatty but the actor wanted to make too many changes to the script. Stone cast Hopkins based on his performances in The Remains of the Day and Shadowlands. Of Hopkins, Stone said, "the isolation of Tony is what struck me. The loneliness. I felt that was the quality that always marked Nixon". When the actor met the director he got the impression that Stone was "one of the great bad boys of American pop culture, and I might be a fool to walk away". What convinced Hopkins to ultimately take on the role and "impersonate the soul of Nixon were the scenes in the film when he talks about his mother and father. That affected me."
• Joan Allen as Pat Nixon
  When Beatty was thinking about doing the film, he insisted on doing a reading of the script with an actress and Allen was flown in from New York City. Afterwards, Beatty told Stone that he had found his Pat Nixon.
• James Woods as H. R. Haldeman
  Woods talked Stone into giving him the part, a role that the director had planned to offer Ed Harris.
• J. T. Walsh as John Ehrlichman
• John Diehl as G. Gordon Liddy
• Paul Sorvino as Henry Kissinger
• Powers Boothe as Alexander Haig
• Ed Harris as E. Howard Hunt
• Bob Hoskins as J. Edgar Hoover
• Brian Bedford as Clyde Tolson
• Mary Steenburgen as Hannah Milhous Nixon
• E. G. Marshall as John N. Mitchell
• Madeline Kahn as Martha Beall Mitchell
• David Paymer as Ron Ziegler
• David Hyde Pierce as John Dean
• Kevin Dunn as Charles Colson
• Tony Goldwyn as Harold Nixon
• Saul Rubinek as Herbert G. Klein
• Edward Herrmann as Nelson Rockefeller
• Marley Shelton as Tricia Nixon Cox
• Bridgette Wilson as Sandy
• Rick Young as Mao Tes-Tung
• Robert Beltran as Frank Sturgis
• Sam Waterston as Richard Helms (scenes present only in director's cut)
• Larry Hagman as "Jack Jones"
  Unlike some other characters in the film who represent actual people, Jack Jones, a billionaire investment banker and real estate tycoon, is a composite character, who is emblematic of "big business" in general. The character may be a reference to Richard Nixon's meetings with Clint Murchison, Sr., although he also illuminates Nixon's relationships with Howard Hughes, H. L. Hunt and other entrepreneurs.