Matthew Macfadyen credited as playing...
John Birt
- [from trailer]
- David Frost: I've had an idea for an interview: Richard Nixon.
- John Birt: You're a talk show host. I spent yesterday watching you interview the Bee Gees.
- David Frost: Weren't they terrific?
- Bob Zelnick: What about wiretapping?
- John Birt: How many people has he wiretapped?
- James Reston, Jr.: This guy wiretapped 17 people.
- John Birt: 17?
- Bob Zelnick: Including his own brother. But you know what? We can't ask him about his brother, 'cause frankly, if Donald Nixon was my brother, I'd wiretap him too.
- John Birt: Don't worry. David is a performer of the highest caliber who has been in pressure situations many times before. Come the hour, he'll be fine.
- James Reston, Jr.: [Birt exits] Did he say..."performer"?
- Bob Zelnick: Yes.
- James Reston, Jr.: That was the word he used?
- Bob Zelnick: Yes, he said "performer".
- James Reston, Jr.: Not "journalist"? Or "interviewer"?
- Bob Zelnick: No, he said "performer".
- James Reston, Jr.: Out of interest... where are you at this moment. Psychically?
- Bob Zelnick: I am imagining the dust, the darkness, the agony, and the unimaginable loneliness of the wilderness I am about to be dispatched to by my Washington political colleagues.