Cynthia Nixon on Playing Nancy Reagan | Killing Reagan

Nancy Reagan is a fiercely devoted champion lover guard dog of her husband. She's a political person, not so much in that she's an issues person, but that she feels the temperature in the room. She can feel who's on her side and who's on her husband's side. What is it? A binder crammed with garbage? Ronnie couldn't possibly digest it. I believe this was Rick's doing. He's fired. Do it now.

Okay, I think Nancy was a guard dog and sometimes an attack dog so that her husband didn't have to be. I think one of Ronald Reagan's great strengths was he was so affable. He was so good at being warm and friendly to people, and that was because he wasn't suspicious of people. So that was her job.

I think that one of the lessons that Nancy took away from the assassination attempt was that people weren't looking out for Ronnie as well as they should, which is not to say the Secret Service per se. I think she was so grateful to the Secret Service and credits them with saving her husband's life. But that precautions should have been taken that weren't, from bulletproof vests to the way in which he was exposed on the street, and all different decisions that were made that in retrospect seem very careless to her. Careless may be objectively. It won't happen again. It mustn't.

I get it. I understand. You don't get it. You don't understand. It is your job to protect him. She spoke to Michael Deaver and she said, "This can never happen again," and she had a big affect on changing the way in which he was exposed in public.

I was talking to Merv Griffin on the phone. Oh, how is he? He is fine. Do you remember when he introduced me to that astrologer? She certainly was reliant on astrologers up to that point, but it seemed to become even more important when they said, "Yes, we could have told you if he had come to us that that was gonna be a not a good day for him."

Are you telling me this woman knew I was going to be shot on March 30th? No, no, no, no, that's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying is she could have learned. Her sense was always that her job was to love and protect her husband. But when the apparition of assassination came onto the scene, it became so real and so palpable, and it guided almost every decision that she made.