To play the 40th president of the United States in this week’s laudatory biopic “Reagan” is something special for Dennis Quaid.

Ronald Reagan is the latest real-life character he’s tackled. There was “The Right Stuff” astronaut Gordon Cooper, rock and roller Jerry Lee Lewis in “Great Balls of Fire” and, he pointed out in a Zoom interview, “I did Clinton (in an HBO film) and I played a Bush-like president in ‘American Dreamz.’”

But Reagan, who he has repeatedly said is his favorite American president?

“It was fear down the spine and also, yes, the dream of a lifetime, the role of a lifetime. Really, it’s become my favorite movie I’ve ever done.”

For Reagan, Quaid opted to not use prosthetics. Is it a bit strange when here he is at 70, an accomplished, much praised actor while Reagan was never that good at acting?

“That’s what a lot of people said. But I would beg to differ. His greatest role was president of the United States.

“But it’s interesting that you brought that up about being an actor, because Reagan and I had two things in common. We were both actors, and we both have sunny dispositions a bit.”

As to how you step into a real person’s shoes, “YouTube is really great for that. Like with ‘The Rookie’ I played Jimmy Morris” – at 35, he was an unlikely rookie baseball player – “and he was on the set every day. I mean, maybe some actors don’t want that, but I really appreciated it.

“Because I feel like I have a responsibility to that person to play them from their point of view. That’s what I would want if somebody was playing me – and without judgment on that.

“There was,” he knew, “a big responsibility with Reagan. Because everybody knows what he looked like.

“And there was this thing about Reagan that I found out through talking to people who really knew him. That was as ‘the Great Communicator’ he was. Yet only so far. Then there was this wall.

“Like a wall of privacy that was impenetrable. They said there was something impenetrable about him that I think he saved for Nancy. And for his relationship with God.”

While “Reagan” is undeniably positive, the president here is without a halo.

“There were a couple of things. His response to AIDS in the beginning was not what it could have been. That was part of the times as well. And not only that, but as he grew to know more about it — as we all grew to know more about it — he became a lot more involved and his position on that changed.”

“Reagan” opens Friday