Dennis Quaid scoffs at censoring Reagan videos to prevent election influence

Actor Dennis Quaid, who portrays Ronald Reagan in an upcoming biopic, says Facebook keeps removing videos of him portraying the Republican icon because they might help Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

The social media platform’s aggressive political content filters have surprised the 70-year-old independent because, he jokes, “Ronald Reagan hasn’t been on the ballot for 40 years.”

“My point about Facebook is that them banning or censoring materials from [the movie] is itself an attempt to influence an election,” Mr. Quaid, who has also portrayed President Clinton on film, told The Washington Times in a video interview.

Mr. Quaid’s four-decade career as a leading man stretches from Disney and Steven Spielberg productions to Christian dramas. He stars as the 40th president in the independent film “Reagan,” scheduled for theatrical release on Friday.

He said Facebook’s automated filters purged advertising posts about the movie again last week after the platform apologized for “an automated mistake” in removing earlier materials because they might interfere with the November presidential election.

Facebook’s parent company, Meta, has moved to limit political posts to reduce its influence on the contest between Mr. Trump, the Republican nominee, and Vice President Kamala Harris, his Democratic opponent.

The Times has reached out to Facebook for comment. In a statement last week, the platform said it was working to prevent its filters from repeatedly taking down “Reagan” posts.

“This happened because our automated systems mistakenly determined that content about Ronald Reagan required prior authorization in accordance with our policies for ads about Social Issues, Elections or Politics,” a Facebook spokesperson said. “This was a mistake and the restriction on the ads has been lifted.”

Mr. Quaid, who said he has voted “pretty equally” for both parties over the past 50 years, endorsed Mr. Trump in May.

“I believe in the pendulum of what our country needs at the time, according to what I think, and I express that in the voting booth,” he said. “And it has nothing to do, really, with a political party.”

He said “Reagan,” which he filmed in 2020 as a sympathetic take on his favorite president, is not political and was not made to promote the Trump campaign.

“The movie is about America as well as being about the life of Ronald Reagan and the principles and views that he espoused,” Mr. Quaid said.

The pandemic delayed the film’s initial 2022 release date.

Mr. Quaid is a Method actor who internalizes his characters’ perspectives. He gained 35 pounds to play Mr. Clinton in “The Special Relationship,” a 2010 made-for-television movie depicting the Democratic president’s friendship with British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

He prepared for his latest role by visiting the Reagans’ ranch in California, known as the “Western White House.” He said the trip helped him overcome his fear of “being judged” for playing such a recognizable figure.

The conservative Young America’s Foundation, which now owns the ranch, has preserved it exactly as the Reagan family left it. Reagan died in 2004 at age 93.

“You could really feel that man there,” Mr. Quaid said. “I found out he wasn’t a rich man.”

The actor noted that the ranch house was “maybe” 1,100 square feet and that the king-size bed “was two single beds that were zip-tied together.”

Mr. Quaid has said he voted for Jimmy Carter and Reagan at different times.

The film, he said, wrestles honestly with Reagan’s flaws.

“There was those who called him ‘warmonger,’ a third-rate actor who never made it, but he was also everybody’s dad,” Mr. Quaid said.

“That meant, for better or worse, you really admired your dad or you rebelled against your dad,” he said. “Those kinds of feelings about him have still, I think, hung around with people, and that’s what makes him interesting.”

The movie focuses on Reagan’s courtship of his future wife, Nancy, played by Penelope Ann Miller, and his staunch opposition to Soviet communism as a rising 1960s conservative figure.

Key scenes include a re-creation of John W. Hinckley Jr.’s attempted assassination of Mr. Reagan outside the Washington Hilton in 1981 after the president delivered a speech.

The film also covers Reagan’s transition from Hollywood actor and president of the Screen Actors Guild to governor of California.

In the interview, Mr. Quaid said the former president “loomed large” in his life.

“He was the guy who, along with Lech Walesa and Margaret Thatcher and the pope, defeated communism and won the Cold War in the end,” Mr. Quaid told The Times.

He said Reagan’s two terms as president “made this world a much better place” for people like him who grew up hiding under their school desks during nuclear safety drills.

Because of the personal connection he felt while making the film, Mr. Quaid said, “Reagan” has become his favorite acting experience.

For 40 years, Mr. Quaid said, he preferred his role as astronaut Gordon Cooper in “The Right Stuff,” a 1983 historical drama about the launch of the U.S. space program.

Far from adding to election-year divisions, he said, he hopes “Reagan” brings people together to remember how great this country used to be” and “how great this country still can be if we learn to get along and start talking to each other again.”

“Just because we disagree on 30% of something, that doesn’t make us a 30% enemy; it makes us a 70% friend, according [to] and quoting Ronald Reagan,” the actor said.