Adapted from the book “All The Truth Is Out“ by political journalist Matt Bai, the true story film “The Front Runner” is in theaters now.
The true story follows Hart from his start as the overwhelming presidential “front runner” in the 1988 election, to his exit from the race with the help of his campaign manager and close friend Bill Dixon, played by Oscar-winning actor J.K. Simmons. The Knockturnal had the opportunity to sit down with Simmons to discuss his own memories of the 1980s Hart campaign, how he prepared for the role of Bill, and surprising facts he learned about the real-life character he played.
“I got to meet Bill Dixon. Great guy, by the way,” said Simmons on how he learned of Dixon’s role in the Hart campaign and his preparation in taking the role. Having played a true-life character before, he finds it helpful to meet with his muses. Although he doesn’t look like Bill Dixon, and at the time of filming was older than Dixon was on the campaign trail, Simmons wants to get to who the heart of who Bill Dixon was. “Some of the fun things I got from him talking on the phone and throwing emails back and forth were just little things about what kind of beer did you drink, and what was it like just hanging out in the bar?
And what were those relationships like between you and Hart, between you and the younger people on the team, the campaign team? Between you and the press? Did you smoke cigarettes? because it’s 1980s, most of us did. I did,” he remembered. “He was, despite the fact this story is about a not his favorite moment to remember in his life, very generous with his time and knowledge and expertise with me.”
The expertise on the real-life Dixon’s part was welcome for Simmons, who noted that although he can recall the presidential race of 1988, he doesn’t pay much attention to politics. “Partly because I barely paid attention in ’87 even though I was 32 years old, I had never been particularly involved in politics or well informed about politics, so I only knew the very broad strokes in ’87,” Simmons said.
“I knew that my parents were big Hart supporters, and they were devastated by the political ramifications of it. So, I learned a lot about all of these characters, obviously specifically Bill Dixon but also about Gary Hart, Lee Hart, who is kind of the heart of the movie in a way. And Donna Rice. It was eye-opening for me in a lot of ways and just fun for me to recreate a period, that I was one of the few people on set that actually remembered 1987. It was fun to be sort of the period expert.”
In addition to appreciating the title of cast “period expert” of the cast, Simmons also admired his fellow cast, the crew, and creatives on board for The Front Runner. “There are so many wonderful supporting characters in this thing, and those scenes of the campaign team sitting around the table or sitting in the condo or wherever, were really fun to play because of all these great young actors, just playing the team game that you hope is gonna be the way every film set is run. And in this case, it was.”
Where Simmons was able to draw on his own memory of the 1980s and fill in the blanks with the knowledge of Dixon for cast and crew where needed, he still found himself surprised at the aftermath of Hart’s campaign camp.
“One of the things that was important to him, that wasn’t in the script when I first got it, was that once it became clear that the bus was going off the cliff, Bill went to the bank and closed out the accounts and paid everybody. Paid all those campaign workers that had been away from their wives and kids, all those people that Bill, in the movie, so eloquently talks about in that first speech of his to the troops. He made sure that they all got paid before that account disappeared. Not that he had thought that Gary Hart was gonna run off with the money or anything, but that was important to him that all the little people get paid. So, that little montage, where, as Hart is giving his concession speech and you see me, walked around handing out envelopes, that was something that I campaigned to add to the script, and that Bill had told me about.”
Simmons learned that following the quick rise and fall of the Hart campaign, Dixon disappeared from politics. “I didn’t realize that Bill, as a result of this whole thing, just upped and walked away and said, ‘I’m done,’” he continued. “And, you know, he and Hart had been friends for years, and had kinda come up together as these idealistic young liberal politicos, wanting to make the world a better place.” As Simmons learned from Dixon, in the wake of what was then a mess, he upped and left the world of politics for good.
And he returned to the upper Midwest and has had a wonderful life,” said Simmons, “as an attorney fighting for the little guy and raising a family, and blissfully unconcerned, well, not unconcerned, I won’t say that, but uninvolved in the political process.”
The Front Runner expands to additional theaters on November 16th, and nationwide on November 21st.
