Rewatchables Reference

• Dave fixes the budget in four minutes – cutting delinquent defense contracts and a $47 million car marketing campaign to fund homeless shelters. 'I don't want to tell some eight-year-old kid he's got to sleep in the street because we want people to feel better about their car.'
• 'I would have taken a bullet for you' – Ving Rhames to Dave at the end. Male-on-male Shawshank Beach hug territory.
• The Montage of Dave as president – the McLaughlin Group, throwing out the first pitch at Camden Yards, real senators reacting. Using real politicians sells the whole thing.
• Dave fires Bob Alexander and gives the jobs speech – 'If you've ever seen the look on somebody's face the day they finally get a job...'
• Dave's last speech and the stroke as Bob Alexander's world falls apart in the party room.
• Dave and the first lady pulled over by cops, singing 'Tomorrow' – her voice is so bad and the cop shining the flashlight in his eyes is perfect comedic timing.

• The cameos: Oliver Stone, Tip O'Neill, Jay Leno, Arnold Schwarzenegger, the McLaughlin Group, early Camden Yards, Ben Stein, Paul Simon. Very 1993.
• The Kevin Kline-Ving Rhames friendship scenes. 'Sweaters would make my neck look too thick.'
• The DC locations – one of the only movies that realistically portrays what it's like to drive around DC.
• Kevin Kline's performance – walks a fine tonal line that almost nobody else could pull off.
• The Clinton/Hillary marriage parallels – pre-Lewinsky but the public was already suspicious of the Clintons' marriage.

• The first 25 minutes are the weakest part – the movie takes off from the moment Mitchell goes down.
• Charles Grodin's wig. Bill hates it when actors suddenly have full heads of hair.
• Jay Leno's cameo – 'This guy having too many Happy Meals or what?' Just not funny.
• The 'everyone gets a job' program is basically socialism and completely unrealistic as policy.

• Robin Williams was considered – makes sense but Kevin Kline's subtlety is what makes it work. Robin Williams would have turned it into a circus.
• Warner Brothers wanted a box-office star; Arnold Schwarzenegger was discussed at one point.
• Warren Beatty took it seriously and actually brought Dave to Ivan Reitman – that's how Reitman got the movie.
• Kevin Costner was considered. He had the most power he'd ever have in his career at that point.
• Kline almost turned it down because he thought it was too similar to his A Fish Called Wanda character.

• Oliver Stone – in the movie for 20 seconds and makes like seven threes.
• Bonnie Hunt as the White House tour guide – 'We're walking, we're walking.' Really funny.

Kevin Dunn – 'I never knew his name was Kevin Dunn until I started researching the movie.' Mississippi Burning, Hot Shots, Dave, Nixon, Godzilla, Stir of Echoes, the Transformers movies, Warrior, five years on Veep. He is the quintessential that guy.

• Frank Langella – he really dials it up. When Dave's balancing the budget, it cuts to Langella staring out the window with his eyes bulging like a maniac. 'He's not a president. He's an ordinary person. I could kill an ordinary person. I could kill a hundred ordinary people.'
• Charles Grodin – unclear what he's going for. Is this guy partially brain-damaged? His best moment: after helping balance the budget, Dave drops him off and Grodin says 'Get out of here.'

• Bill Clinton approved of the film and gave Gary Ross an autographed script.
• Barack Obama told Kevin Kline 'I love Dave' because it made the job look fun.
• The Oval Office set was reused 25+ times. The President's bedroom looks nothing like the Sorkin version.
• They added the scene where Dave and the First Lady impersonate presidential impersonators late in the shoot because Reitman didn't buy that they would click so quickly.
• A musical based on the movie opened in 2018.
• President Mitchell's stroke is inspired by Nelson Rockefeller dying during an encounter with his 22-year-old assistant in 1979. The Woodrow Wilson precedent – his wife ran the presidency for two years after his 1919 stroke.

• Kevin Kline – yes. Coming off the Oscar for A Fish Called Wanda, now this. He has more power and leverage than he'll ever have again.
• Frank Langella – this is his signature fun performance, his most iconic role. Dracula might be the actual apex but this is the most fun.

• They found a body double for the president so he could have sex with staff – the concept of a presidential body double is ludicrous, though Bill insists it's probably happened in American history.
• What happened to Dave's temp agency during the five months he was president?
• A lot of people knew about Mitchell's stroke and the payouts were extremely low – 50K, 50K, 100K, and one doctor who asked to be head of the CDC. That's not enough money for the biggest story in American political history.
• Dave wanders around on the balcony as the president – major security concern, sniper territory.
• The shower scene – shouldn't the First Lady have known it wasn't her husband after 30 years of marriage? (Amanda: the conditions were different.)
• This is technically a coup d'etat. No one elected any of these people or allowed them to make these decisions.

• Would Dave ever come clean that he was actually President Mitchell for five months? He'd probably be arrested for treason.
• Who would divorce Dave? He's such a good guy. Sean argues he's actually a charlatan – a magic-trick-spewing impersonator who forces his friend to hire people.
• Was Dave more or less healthy than President Mitchell? (The shower scene implications.)

1000% yes – Bill greenlit it immediately. But the tone question is crucial: is it an optimistic comedy or the story of a coup and a cover-up? Making it about a Trump-like figure who gets replaced would inadvertently humanize the administration.

Kevin Kline – easy. Shout out to Ving Rhames. Stealth case for Ivan Reitman because this kind of movie is really hard to get the tone right on.