LONDON?David Frost said Friday the film based on his interviews with disgraced US president Richard Nixon deserved to win at the Oscars, after "Frost/Nixon" was nominated for five Academy Awards.

The movie was shortlisted Thursday for best picture, best director, best actor (Frank Langella), best adapted screenplay and best film editing.

The film about the 1977 interviews, focusing on the Watergate scandal, was based on the stage play of the same name.

Frost said US actor Langella, who plays Nixon, got so deeply in his character that he was referred to as "Mr President."

"I really hope he wins the Oscar for that fantastic performance sustained right through," Frost told BBC television.

"He started on stage and... he said he was so tense that instead of talking to someone when he was off stage for 10 minutes, he'd go to the back of the stage, somewhere dark, so he kept in character.

"And then when the stage manager came over to him, he had to say: 'Mr President, you're required on stage'."

Interviewer Frost, 69, who is played by British actor Michael Sheen in the film, said the movie was "about 10 percent fiction."

Asked if he knew the epic nature of what he was unravelling in the Nixon interviews, Frost said: "We knew what we were trying to do and what added tension was to get to that point and then to try and go further so that in the end his 'mea culpa' went further than even we had hoped.

"At the end of that I think we were aware that something sort of historic had happened and we'd gone further than expected, so yes.

"We were both sort of drained at the end, exhausted at the end of the second session on Watergate."

Frost was asked whether the days of gladiatorial political interviews had gone.

"You're right... then of course the Nixon situation was historic, unique," he said. "And someone resigning as minister of agriculture is not quite in the same class, is it?

"The apology is also what's unique about that."