The movie, which opens in theatres on Friday, tells the story of the Reykjavík Summit of 1986, the Cold War meeting where Reagan and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev sat down in Iceland to talk about reducing their
It was the day before shooting started, and Daniels, 71, had been prepping for months to play Reagan.
“There was a presence,” says Daniels, of being in the same spot where history had been made nearly 40 years earlier.
The movie, which opens in theatres on Friday, tells the story of the Reykjavík Summit of 1986, the Cold War meeting where Reagan and Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev sat down in Iceland to talk about reducing their nuclear capabilities.
Walk away, let him be, we’ll come back and light another time.’”
At that point, Daniels says, going into the space and sitting in the chair was about rehearsing, and feeling the weight of everything that had transpired inside the room.
“You go into a church, there’s a presence.
When I did ‘Gettysburg,’ I went to Little Round Top on a Sunday morning, you can feel it.
And that was the same thing in this house, that is the pride and joy, I think, of the city of Reykjavík, not to mention the country of Iceland.
They’re very proud of what happened there on that weekend in October 1986.”
Leading up to filming, which took place over 18 days in fall 2024, the Emmy winner and multiple Tony nominee rode around Chelsea on his bicycle, listening to tapes of Reagan on his headphones to study his cadence and the mannerisms of his speech.
During prep, Gunn frequently checked in with Daniels on phone and via Zoom, and he came to visit Daniels at his home.
“I drove out to see him and we sat on his porch right there at the lake and talked about it,” says Gunn.
“And the foundational element, I think, was the word ‘suggest.’ We wanted to suggest Reagan, because if we pushed it too far, then it becomes caricature.
So I knew Jeff could do it, and it was really about helping and finding the confidence in the craft of it.”
“It’s trying to get to that 100th performance of a Broadway run, where you kind of go, ‘OK, now I know that’s how long it takes,’” Daniels says.
“Then I put on the voice, and the mannerisms, and attached it to Michael’s words, and you throw it against the lens and hope that it works.”
Jared Harris (“Chernobyl”) plays opposite Daniels as Gorbachev, and Daniels’ fellow Michigan native (and similarly obsessed Detroit Tigers superfan) J.K.
“Michael did a great job of surrounding me with the kind of actors who came in ready,” says Daniels.
When you don’t have time, you throw it in front of the lens on take one.
And that’s where you discover what the other actor is going to do with it.”
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