Langella: Nixon character stayed with me

NEW YORK, Dec. 5 (UPI) -- Frank Langella says it was hard to shake off the character of Richard Nixon after playing the U.S. president in the stage and film versions of "Frost/Nixon."

"Well, he's a very affecting person to play," the actor told reporters in New York recently about playing Nixon, who resigned in 1974 while facing impeachment because of the Watergate scandal.

"Usually, characters leave me relatively quickly, but Nixon stayed with me a lot. The depth of this man's pain and the depth of his desire for greatness is what came to me more than anything else," Langella said. "So, the continual suspicion and paranoia that he lived with stayed with me at times. I used to look at taxi drivers like, 'What do you want out of me?' So, in that sense, he was always around in my head, still is. I mean, I don't live my life in any way consumed by him, but the particular things that drove Nixon are in all of us, and he just happened to have more of it than anybody else. I think it's why we are so fascinated by him and why he makes people cringe. Because he makes us think, 'Oh, I have those qualities, but I try to hide them.' He couldn't."