First family •
Anthony Hopkins as
Richard Nixon •
Joan Allen as
Pat Nixon •
Annabeth Gish as
Julie Nixon Eisenhower •
Marley Shelton as
Tricia Nixon Cox White House staff and cabinet •
James Woods as
H. R. Haldeman, the Chief of Staff and Nixon's closest advisor. •
J. T. Walsh as
John Ehrlichman, Domestic Affairs Advisor, he is the first to notice the president's paranoia and thinks Nixon is breaking the law. •
Paul Sorvino as
Henry Kissinger, National Security Advisor and later Secretary of State, he is rumored to be self-serving and a leaker. •
Powers Boothe as General
Alexander Haig, a U.S. Army General who served under Henry Kissinger as Deputy National Security Advisor and later the president's White House Chief of Staff during the Watergate scandal. •
E. G. Marshall as
John N. Mitchell, Nixon's longtime friend and later Attorney General, whom he refers to as "family". He is the first to be set up to take the fall for Watergate. •
David Paymer as
Ron Ziegler, White House Press Secretary that Nixon pushes around, both literally and figuratively. •
David Hyde Pierce as
John Dean, White House Counsel and the first to testify in front of Congress on Watergate and the cover up. •
Kevin Dunn as
Charles Colson, White House Counsel and later Director of Public Liaison, also a close advisor to Nixon. •
Saul Rubinek as
Herbert G. Klein, Nixon's campaign press secretary in 1960 and 1962; then the Director of Communications. •
Fyvush Finkel as
Murray Chotiner, one of Nixon's mentors and chairman of his campaigns in 1960, 1962, 1968, and 1972. •
Tony Plana as
Manolo Sanchez, Nixon's valet and a trusted contact. •
James Karen as
William P. Rogers, Nixon's Secretary of State who urges Nixon not to bomb Cambodia. Nixon thinks he is weak and a leaker and excludes him on international meetings, deferring to Kissinger instead. •
Richard Fancy as
Melvin Laird, Secretary of Defense who concurs with Rogers to not bomb Cambodia.
Nixon family •
Mary Steenburgen as
Hannah Milhous Nixon, Richard's passive but strong
Quaker mother. •
Tony Goldwyn as Harold Nixon, Richard's brother who dies of tuberculosis. •
Tom Bower as
Francis Nixon, Richard's overbearing and rough father. •
Sean Stone as
Donald Nixon, Richard's younger brother. • Joshua Preston as Arthur Nixon •
Corey Carrier as adolescent Richard Nixon • David Barry Gray as young adult Richard Nixon
White House plumbers •
Ed Harris as
E. Howard Hunt, a former CIA operative who was attached to the Bay of Pigs. •
John Diehl as
G. Gordon Liddy •
Robert Beltran as
Frank Sturgis Other cast members •
Bob Hoskins as
J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI. •
Brian Bedford as
Clyde Tolson, Hoover's partner and Deputy FBI Director. •
Madeline Kahn as
Martha Beall Mitchell, John Mitchell's gregarious wife who insists Dick Nixon was nothing but a crook and ruined her family name. In real life, Martha made several phone calls to reporters over Watergate and her husband. •
Edward Herrmann as
Nelson Rockefeller, a wealthy presidential candidate in 1964. He warns Nixon of being too extreme in his ideology. Though not depicted in the movie, Rockefeller would become
Gerald Ford's Vice President. •
Dan Hedaya as Trini Cardoza, based upon
Bebe Rebozo, close advisor to Nixon. •
Bridgette Wilson as Sandy •
Ric Young as
Mao Zedong, the ruler of Communist China. •
Bai Ling as Mao's interpreter •
Boris Sichkin as
Leonid Brezhnev, a Soviet leader. •
Sam Waterston as
Richard Helms (scenes present only in director's cut), the Director of the CIA who knows more about Nixon than Nixon feels comfortable knowing. The two of them go back to the Bay of Pigs fiasco. •
Joanna Going as young student •
Tony Lo Bianco as
Johnny Roselli, a gangster Nixon knew in Cuba who was attached to the Castro assassination attempt. •
George Plimpton as the President's lawyer. •
Larry Hagman as "Jack Jones" - Unlike some other characters in the film who represent actual people, Jack Jones, a billionaire investment banker and real estate tycoon, is a composite character, who is emblematic of "big business" in general. The character may be a reference to Nixon's meetings with
Clint Murchison Sr., although he also illuminates Nixon's relationships with
Howard Hughes,
H. L. Hunt and other entrepreneurs. •
Michael Chiklis as the TV director •
Jack Wallace as the football coach •
John C. McGinley as the salesmen in the Dept. of Labor training film •
James Pickens Jr. as an audience agitator ==Production==