Word: stantons
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Nichols and his wife, ABC News star Diane Sawyer, are friendly with the Clintons; Nichols and May have been hosts of benefits for the President. But the director insists he neither spoke with Clinton about the film nor softened the case against Stanton. "We're all supposed to be friends of the President, which is nuts to begin with," Nichols says, bristling. "The movie is about a man with a talent for the job and the things that get him into trouble. That's the story. Softening it or hardening it--forgive the expression--doesn't come into...
...fact Klein was in the thrall of the Clinton charisma; his Jack is a figure that rockets off the page. In the film Stanton is less grand and less sexy, and Travolta plays it subdued, a tad mopish. His smile looks startled, as if he had just sniffed ammonia. He has the hardest job: while everyone else gets to crack wise, he has to make political platitudes sound like poetry and Stanton's skunkish behavior smell almost sweet. His Stanton is a large man unsure whether he's big enough for a job he would kill...
There were whispers that after a White House conversation with Travolta, Clinton put pressure on Germany to soften its stance toward the Church of Scientology, of which the actor is an outspoken adherent, and that in return Travolta portrayed Stanton more sympathetically. That rumor gets a sneer from Klein ("I don't think Clinton would change policy toward Germany to get better treatment from John Travolta"), but the actor has warm memories of the chat, in which he says Clinton spoke of an old roommate who had been a Scientologist. Travolta insists his performance wasn't swayed by the President...
...rallies and conferences look real. Former White House press secretary Dee Dee Meyers, who had been approached to be political adviser on the film, later asked about the production, but that was curiosity, not a threat. And Nichols did ask Stephanopoulos whether Henry would decide to stick with Stanton through the election--a question Klein left hanging, as did the original cut of the movie. "Well, of course he stays," Stephanopoulos replied. "He'd want to know how things turned...
...shooting of the last scene took place in late January, just after Monica Lewinsky had become a household name. The film's main ad line ("What went down on the way to the top") now had a Letterman leer, and the central mystery (Can Stanton cover up an affair with a young woman?) seemed less like satire than prophecy. But, of course, the timing was just a fluke of the Zeitgeist. As Maura Tierney says, "The reality is something very serious, and the movie is something we made in Hollywood, based on a book that came out more than...