Warren Beatty is close to signing a deal to portray Richard Nixon in Ron Howard's "Frost/Nixon" reports Hollywood Elsewhere.

Michael Sheen, recently scoring acclaim for playing Tony Blair in "The Queen", is up for playing Frost.

Jeff Wells says "A guy with some perspective on Beatty's dealings says "naaah, that's not gonna happen" so maybe not. And yet people close to the situation are saying it's pretty much Beatty."

Howard is said to have offered Beatty the Nixon role as long as two months ago.