The Royal Speculator

Talking about Idi Amin, Morgan says: "You are not born a dictator, you become a dictator, so it's only reasonable to show him as a human being."

Consider how Morgan's characters match up. The traditionalist Elizabeth II vs. new-age Tony Blair. The Ugandan despot Amin vs. the naive Scottish doctor. Moral do-gooder Lord Longford vs. amoral murderer Myra Hindley in the new HBO movie "Longford." And probing television host David Frost vs. secretive Richard M. Nixon in the play "Frost/Nixon," which travels to Broadway next month.

According to colleagues, Morgan embellishes those real-life emotional, philosophical, ethical and political conflicts, deepening them through smart speculation and imagination.

"He writes complex characters. You will find your sympathies fluctuating. You are drawn to them, then you see a flaw, and then you are drawn to them again," says Lindsay Duncan, who co-stars in "Longford," which explores the issue of faith and forgiveness in the face of genuine evil.

"Particularly at this moment," Duncan continues, "when moral debate is being devalued and devalued all the time, when the press will oversimplify and we seem to be reluctant in general terms to think seriously about moral issues, Peter writes with such intelligence. He doesn't tell you what to think, but invites you to think."

Although his works are often populated with presidents and prime ministers, dukes and dictators, Morgan insists he wields no partisan agenda.

"I write about politicians a lot, but I'm not a political person, I don't have a line that I'm trying to sell or push," he says. "I'm interested primarily in relationships . . . this odd collection of pas de deux -- dances between very different kinds of people."

He somewhat undercut that claim days later, however, when picking up his screenplay Golden Globe for "The Queen." He suggested to the live television audience that if millions of people taking to the streets managed to change Queen Elizabeth's attitude to the death of Diana, think what might be accomplished by millions more taking similar action over something much more important. But still, he didn't specifically spell out what has importance.

Morgan's scripts are like that, providing people with information and ideas, but also the chance to be open-minded.

Morgan, a father of four young children, is direct and unpretentious in manner. He could be your average middle-school teacher, although his own school days were not so happy.

A first-generation Englishman of German and Polish origin, he was saddled with the nickname "Fritz" by fellow students. "God, they are broad-minded English schoolboys," he says, with only a murmur of humor in his sigh. After his Jewish father died, his mother sent him to a traditional Catholic boarding school, Downside.

"I think Borstal would have been better," he says in the same tone of voice, referring to a British juvenile reform system, now abolished. One day, at 16, he just up and left the school. From then on, he chose his own educational path.