Cynthia Nixon Says It Wasn’t Easy Playing Nancy Reagan And Her ‘Need For Total Control’ In ‘Killing Reagan’

Cynthia Nixon never liked Nancy Reagan, according to Fox News. The 50-year-old Sex and the City actress may be playing Nancy Reagan, but it certainly doesn’t make her a fan of the former First Lady.

Cynthia Nixon recently appeared on FOX411 to promote her new TV movie, Killing Reagan, and she shared her opinion about Ronald Reagan’s wife. Killing Reagan is a two-hour TV event, which premieres on October 16 on National Geographic Channel and is based on Bill O’Reilly’s best-selling book of the same name.

It was her “inner sense of panic and need for control” that always repelled Cynthia Nixon from the former First Lady. Those two things always encouraged Mrs. Reagan to consult astrologers about pretty much anything, Nixon said.

“She had a very problematic relationship with her children, particularly her daughter. I think that was coming from the same thing: a need for total control.”

Earlier this year, Cynthia Nixon was cast as Nancy Reagan for the TV movie titled Killing Reagan, in which she stars alongside Tim Matheson, who plays Ronald Reagan, and Kyle S. More in the role of John Hinkley, Jr., who tried to kill the 40th President of the United States in 1981.

To portray Mrs. Reagan in the best way possible and to truly convey her thoughts and struggles when her husband was one of the world’s most prominent figures in the early 80s, Cynthia Nixon had to read a number of books about both the former President and his wife.

Interestingly, Cynthia Nixon admitted that she had formed a negative opinion about Mrs. Reagan even before getting to know the former First Lady more profoundly. However, by reading all those written accounts about Mrs. Reagan, the Sex and the City actress had more “empathy for who she was and what she accomplished.”

“I don’t think that Ronald Reagan would’ve ever been president or maybe even governor without her as his partner.”

Mrs. Reagan is not the only famous person Cynthia Nixon has played this year, as the actress is also preparing for the release of her upcoming film, A Quiet Passion, in which she plays the role of Emily Dickinson, according to Entertainment Weekly.

The biopic directed by Terence Davies focuses on the life of the famously reclusive writer, played by Cynthia Nixon, who died in 1886 when she was 55-years-old. The film premiered at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year, but there is no word yet on the film’s theatrical release date in the United States.

But it was Mrs. Reagan who was the most conflicting person Cynthia Nixon has portrayed in her acting career. Nixon admitted that it was her “sheer tenacity” and childhood that allowed the former First Lady to create an “unbelievable life” for herself and “create a president” for the entire nation.

“I mean, I think she really did that.”

Cynthia Nixon was just 15-years-old when Hinkley attempted to assassinate the President of the United States on March 30, 1981. Nixon added that even though her family was never a fan of Mr. Reagan, it didn’t seem to matter, as they were “truly scared” to have their president shot.

“I remember being in my room alone and being really frightened that the president of our country had been shot.”

Hinkley, who attempted to kill the President, was found not guilty and was confined to a mental institution for the insane. He was released to the custody of his parents earlier this month, and Cynthia Nixon admitted that it’s “hard to know what the good would be in that.”

“So people who have been following him and paying attention to him, if they feel he’s all right to walk out now, I hope and assume that they’re right in their judgment.”

[Photo by Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP Images]