Making ‘Reagan’: Producing a Movie During a Global Pandemic
Veteran filmmaker shares battles over COVID-19, budgetary concerns
Shooting a movie during a pandemic is truly a surreal experience like no other.
Part of the fun of making a movie is the joy of being together—of going to restaurants, local haunts and generally hanging out with cast and crew. When I first landed on the set of “Reagan,” I went straight to our medical supervisor and asked her what the rules were for my stay there.
The conversation went like this:
“Can I go to a restaurant?”
“No.”
“What about Walmart?”
“That’s absolutely the most dangerous place of all.”
“How am I supposed to eat?”
She just stared at me.
Eventually we made a plan and Walmart groceries were delivered to my door daily. We were living in a rental—my 92-year-old mother, my wife, four kids, a caregiver and an assistant. While I was off at work, the kids were doing Zoom school, and we were trying hard to make normal out of chaos.
At least there was a jacuzzi in the backyard.
I arrived at the old Masonic Temple in Guthrie, Okla. where we’d be shooting various scenes, and then we drove over to our office located on the third floor of a prominent building in downtown Guthrie.
Before we settled in for meetings, I decided to take a stroll around downtown. As a light rain began, I grabbed a poncho and tried to get my bearings.
There were plenty of signs around describing the kind of town Guthrie once was: lots of pubs, references to it being a place of refuge during Prohibition, and the quiet bitterness that comes when your town used to be the capitol of the state but for some reason isn’t anymore.
Back in Guthrie, we began a series of meetings with our team, and I was encouraged that the whole gang was beginning to take shape and form a family of sorts. My screenwriter Howard “Howie” Klausner, Ronald Reagan personified, arrived.
Always optimistic, always cheerleading, the man who could easily have given up many times but remained relentlessly upbeat.
My co-producer John Sullivan, on the other hand, was the realist—ready to tamp down any excessive optimism while my director Sean McNamara shared Howie’s overall outlook and a cheerful determination to shoot every scene possible, even if it meant breaking the budget.
A typical pattern in our conversations features Sean arguing for a scene, John saying we can’t afford it, Sean saying we can go find the money, and me saying we don’t want to get money from people who are invariably going to use our need as leverage against us.
“Reagan” gets 10 extra minutes and a re-release on Sept. 25. The movie starring Dennis Quaid and Jon Voight was 15 years in the making and faced unique challenges. The production company was de-banked, just like filmmaker @DineshDSouza, My Pillow founder @realMikeLindell and… pic.twitter.com/y3ZCL0ABP6
— Paul Bond (@WriterPaulBond) August 10, 2026
As I set foot in our Oval Office, located on the stage of a large auditorium, it became clear this thing was finally happening. It was awe-inspiring. Built to exact specifications, I stared for a few minutes at the set before I sat in the President’s chair and let the photographer take a picture of me with my arms outstretched.
Later I would get photos of my son Jordan peeking through the little door in the desk, as JFK’s son had once done. It was a moment to take in all that had happened before thinking again about all that could go wrong.
When Dennis Quaid arrived, we spent some important time in his trailer preparing for the job ahead, and then moved to a table read in the Dominion House—a hotel which had once been an orphanage.
Our first day of shooting featured Dennis in the Oval Office in a scene with the great Mark Moses who I loved watching on “Mad Men.” He was the guy with the dog Chauncy, of course.
Mark played Judge Clark for us, and the first scene featured the response to the assassination scene upon the Pope. Truth be told, of the seventy-three movies I’ve worked on, I’ve tried to avoid being on set as much as possible.
But on this movie I felt I had to be there. So, I was on the set for nearly every moment, making sure everything is just right.
I owed this to my investors and to Ronald Reagan.
RELATED: ‘REAGAN’ NOT DIVERSE ENOUGH FOR OSCARS
On the first day of shooting, Dennis was intense. But also, restless. If I wasn’t mindful, he could leave the set and saunter back to his trailer, and when we were ready to resume shooting, his delay in reappearing could cost us an hour and thousands of dollars.
I quickly realized that one of my important jobs on set was to keep him in good spirits, so I’d regaled him with jokes and one-liners. I was also showing scenes to Dana Rohrabacher, who was among those who knew Reagan best and he came back to me with this important note:
“Right now, Dennis is playing Reagan from the mouth, tell him he needs to play him from the chest.”
I relayed that piece of information to Sean, who then passed it on to Dennis because I didn’t want to interfere in the director-actor relationship. Most of the time I gave performance notes to Sean instead of to Dennis directly, but there was one occasion when I pulled Dennis aside when I thought he was trying too hard to be Reagan.
“Dennis,” I said. “Don’t be afraid to just be Dennis Quaid.” I had fought hard to get Dennis for this role and I wanted him to remember to let his natural juices flow, that God had prepared him for sixty-six years for this moment.
It was time for him to shine.
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During the last three years Dennis and I developed a rapport. I wouldn’t say it was always an easy rapport, but we understood each other better.
He knew I wasn’t a flake, and that I was delivering on all the things he needed to make the movie of our lives. And I saw how committed he was to the project and had taken some career risks to take this on.
And we were marching together, as to war. We shared a spiritual bond, knit together by our like-minded mothers, mothers of sons who remained, at sixty-seven and fifty-three, eager to make them proud.
Excerpted from “Making Reagan: A Memoir From The Producer of The Reagan Movie” by Mark Joseph. The Director’s cut of “Reagan” releases in theaters nationwide on September 25th.