Jeff Daniels Biography

An attractive All-American looking leading man of the 1980s with a flair for playing perplexed characters overtaken by unusual circumstances, Jeff Daniels first registered with the public with his performances as a mostly self-involved semi-intellectual who cheats on his cancer-stricken wife in "Terms of Endearment" (1983). Two years later, he solidified his status as the smug actor in the film-within-the-film who steps off the screen to woo Mia Farrow in Woody Allen's "The Purple Rose of Cairo" (1985). But Daniels' defining role, and one of his finest performances to date, came as the feckless hero caught up in the kinky and dangerous world of a free-spirited woman in Jonathan Demme's offbeat comedy-thriller, "Something Wild" (1986).

Born in Georgia but raised in Michigan, Daniels attended college with the intention of becoming a teacher, although he minored in theater. Cast by guest director Marshall W Mason in a production of "Summer and Smoke" in his junior year, he dropped out of college and moved to NYC to work with Mason at the Circle Repertory Company. Beginning as an apprentice, Daniels eventually made his stage debut with the company in 1976. Playwright Lanford Wilson expressly wrote the role of Jed, the homosexual lover of a paraplegic, in "Fifth of July" for Daniels, who appeared in both the 1978 Off-Broadway version and the 1980 Broadway production. (He also reprised the role for the TV version first aired on Showtime in 1982.) For his stunning performance in the one-man "Johnny Got His Gun" (1982), the actor received an OBIE award. Other Broadway credits included "The Golden Age" (1984), A R Gurney's modern-day version of Henry James' "The Aspern Papers", and Lanford Wilson's "Redwood Curtain" (1993), a role he reprised in the 1995 CBS TV adaptation.

Daniels entered films in the small role of the policeman who breaks up a fight between Coalhouse Walker and the fire chief in "Ragtime" (1981). He was wasted as Meryl Streep's editor and friend in "Heartburn" (1986), but fared better as a radio action hero in Woody Allen's "Radio Days" (1987). Daniels has also played leading roles in the little-seen "The House on Carroll Street" (1988), as the stalwart All-American FBI agent who nevertheless helps the "red-tainted" Kelly McGillis ferret out why U.S. officials are hiding a group of German immigrants in Brooklyn, "Checking Out" (1988), as a raging hypochondriac, and "The Butcher's Wife" (1991), opposite Demi Moore. Daniels managed to hold his own alongside several hundred spiders and the scene-stealing John Goodman in the creepy "Arachnophobia" (1990), and he won much-deserved acclaim for his fine performance as Joshua Chamberlain, the Union colonel who defends Little Round Top, in the otherwise middling "Gettysburg" (1993). He ventured back to lighter fare and better box office in supporting roles as Keanu Reeves' partner in the exciting actioner "Speed" and displayed a rarely-seen goofy side in the smash holiday-hit "Dumb and Dumber" (both 1994). In 1996, Daniels further demonstrated his versatility by appearing in the ensemble of the edgy independent film "2 Days in the Valley", playing Anna Paquin's estranged father in the heart-warming "Fly Away Home,” and going up against Glenn Close's Cruella DeVil in the live-action remake "101 Dalmatians.”

In the late 80s, Daniels retreated to his hometown of Chelsea, Michigan, where he founded the Purple Rose Theater Company. Since its inception, the company has produced several of Daniels' own plays, including "Shoe Man,” "The Vast Difference" and "The Kingdom's Coming.” Daniels made his feature directorial debut with the locally themed comedy "Escanaba in da Moonlight" (2001), adapted from his stage play about a hunting trip gone slightly awry. The film was self-distributed in Michigan in 2001 to little fanfare, though his second outing as writer-director proved more successful. Daniel's "Super Sucker," a comedy about rival vacuum cleaner salesmen, won a slot at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in Aspen and walked away with the fest's Audience Award for Best Feature.

In Hollywood, Daniels continued to walk the hit-and-miss path of the actor who can play both leading and character roles; alternately appearing in bombs like the film remake of the 1960s sit-com "My Favorite Martian" (1999) and in moving roles in popular films such as "Pleasantville" (1998), in which he played the lonely soda shop owner Mr. Johnson living in an artificial, black-and-white world of a 1950s sit-com, who strikes up an unexpected—and Technicolor—romance with a married woman (Joan Allen). In between big-screen projects, Daniels also turned in exemplary work in several television efforts, including playing George Washington in the A&E telepic "The Crossing" (2000).

In 2002 Daniels appeared in Clint Eastwood's detective thriller "Blood Work" and made a renewed impression on audiences in a brief but memorable role as Ed Harris' former lover in Steven Daldry's "The Hours" and in the reprisal of his role as Colonel Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain in "Gods and Generals," Ron Maxwell's 2003 prequel to "Gettysburg.” For his next movie, Daniels stepped behind the camera as well as in front, as he wrote, directed and starred in the slapstick “Super Sucker” (2002), about a door-to-door vacuum salesman who discovers his product can double as a sex toy for dissatisfied housewives. Daniels also contributed to financing the film, but unfortunately it failed to earn wide distribution and went straight to video after a brief appearance in theaters.

After a turn in the ABC telepic adaptation of Mitch Albom's bestseller "The Five People You Meet In Heaven" (2004), Daniels next appeared as a grieving father in “Imaginary Heroes” (2005). Co-starring Sigourney Weaver and Emile Hirsch, the film depicted a family mourning the death of their eldest son (Kip Pardue) who killed himself when the pressure of being a high school swimming champion became too much to handle. In “Because of Winn-Dixie” (2005), Daniels played the preacher father of a young girl (AnnaSophia Robb) who comes to live with him for the summer despite their troubled relationship caused by her mother’s desertion. He next had a nicely etched supporting turn in George Clooney's second directorial effort "Good Night and Good Luck" (2005) playing straight-talking network CBS news executive Sid Mickelson, followed by strong notices in writer-director Noah Baumbach's autobiographical "The Squid and the Whale" (2005), the story of two young boys dealing with their parents divorce in Brooklyn in the 1980s. Daniels played the patriarch of an eccentric Brooklyn family who claims to have been a famous novelist but is now reduced to teaching, and after his estranged wife finds literary success he finds himself sleeping with a student whom his elder son is courting.

Daniels returned to high-concept studio fare with a supporting role in the one-note comedy, “RV” (2006), playing the father in a family of fulltime RV travelers whose friendliness and constant singing drive another family, headed by an overworked executive (Robin Williams) on a vacation with his disgruntled family, more crazy than they make themselves. Daniels didn’t have to look far for inspiration for the role—in real life, he has been an RV enthusiast and drove his own recreational vehicle to and from set. Despite poor reviews, “RV” took its opening weekend with a $16 million haul at the box office. Meanwhile, Daniels was set to be seen in “Infamous” (lensed 2005), the second biopic in as many years about Truman Capote (Toby Jones) and his six year stint in Holcomb, Kansas investigating a grisly quadruple homicide that led to his writing In Cold Blood. Daniels played Alvin Dewey, the KBI agent who befriends Capote and helps grant the writer unprecedented access to information and the prisoners, including their hangings at Kansas State Penitentiary.

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JEFF DANIELS BIOGRAPHY