The only movie Ron Howard instantly knew he had to make: “I did something I’d never done, ever”
Many words, not all of them entirely glowing, have been used to describe Ron Howard as a director over the years, and it wouldn’t be a revelation to say that “impulsive” or “risk-taker” haven’t been among them.
In the nicest possible way, the two-time Academy Award winner is about as straight and narrow as a filmmaker can be. Howard doesn’t ruffle any feathers, he doesn’t butt heads with the studio, he doesn’t let budgets spiral out of control, and big-name directors don’t come much safer.
It’s impossible to explain what ‘A Ron Howard Film’ is because such a thing doesn’t exist; he doesn’t have signature camera moves, recurring themes, identifiable motifs, or anything that makes his pictures uniquely his own. Again, not a bad thing when he’s one of the most successful in Hollywood history, but it does paint the picture of a man who rarely lets his impulses get the better of him.
Of course, rules are made to have exceptions, and Howard has his. Whether he’s tackling drama, comedy, sci-fi, or fantasy, the former Happy Days favourite does what all directors do and pores over the available scripts and stories before something catches his eye and jumps out as his next production.
What he’d never done was make a phone call and commit immediately after watching a play, which is exactly what happened the first time he caught a performance of Peter Morgan’s Frost/Nixon. Howard was so bowled over that he knew before the curtain call that he wanted to turn it into a feature, and he got the ball rolling as soon as it was socially acceptable to whip out his phone.
“It was so immediate that I did something I’ve never done before, ever,” he explained. “I literally left the theatre and called Brian Grazer, my partner in Imagine Films, and called my agent, and said, ‘I don’t want to just develop this, I want to make it. I’ll commit to making it next.’ I think everybody was a little shocked because they’d never heard me sort of jump in with both feet like that.”
It’s not that easy to get a feature off the ground, though, but being a world-renowned director with a pair of Academy Awards helped speed up the process. After hammering out the details faster than he’d ever done in his career, cameras were rolling on Howard’s Frost/Nixon in August 2007, the same month the stage show ended its run on Broadway, with Martin Sheen and Frank Langella reprising the title roles.
There was a brief period where Howard tried to convince Jack Nicholson to play the disgraced former president, but with Langella winning a Tony for the play and then landing an Academy Award nomination for the movie, sticking with the tried-and-trusted combination worked out in everyone’s best interests.
It’s undoubtedly the most impulsive decision Howard has ever made as a director, and it was clearly worth it when Frost/Nixon remains one of his personal favourites from a back catalogue that numbers 28 films and counting.
