Jeff Daniels

Jeffrey Warren Daniels (born February 19, 1955) is an American actor. He is known for his work on stage and screen playing diverse characters switching between comedy and drama. He is the recipient of several accolades, including two Primetime Emmy Awards, in addition to nominations for five Golden Globe Awards, five Screen Actors Guild Awards, and three Tony Awards.

He made his film debut in Miloš Forman's drama Ragtime (1981) followed by James L. Brooks's Terms of Endearment (1983), and Mike Nichols's Heartburn (1986). He then received three Golden Globe Award nominations for Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Jonathan Demme's Something Wild (1986), and Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale (2005). He starred in a variety of genre films such as Gettysburg (1993), Speed (1994), Dumb and Dumber (1994), 101 Dalmatians (1996), Pleasantville (1998), Because of Winn-Dixie (2005), RV (2006) and Dumb and Dumber To (2014). He also took roles in critically acclaimed films such as The Hours (2002), Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), Infamous (2006), Looper (2012), Steve Jobs (2015), and The Martian (2015).

From 2012 to 2014, Daniels starred as Will McAvoy in the HBO political drama series The Newsroom, for which he won the 2013 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series and received Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild Award nominations. He won a second Primetime Emmy Award in 2018 for his performance in the Netflix miniseries Godless (2017). He has portrayed real life figures such as John P. O'Neill in the Hulu miniseries The Looming Tower (2018) and FBI director James Comey in The Comey Rule (2020) for Showtime.

Daniels is also known for his roles on stage, making his Broadway debut in Gemini (1977). He went on to receive three nominations for the Tony Best Actor in a Play for his roles in Yasmina Reza's God of Carnage (2009), David Harrower's Blackbird (2016), and Aaron Sorkin's To Kill a Mockingbird (2018–2021). He is the founder and current executive director of the Chelsea, Michigan Purple Rose Theatre Company.

Daniels was born in Athens, Georgia, to Marjorie J. (née Ferguson) and Robert Lee "Bob" Daniels. He spent the first six weeks of his life in Georgia where his father was teaching before the family moved to his parents' native Michigan where he grew up in Chelsea. His father owned the Chelsea Lumber Company and was a one-time mayor of the town.

Daniels briefly attended Central Michigan University and participated in the school's theater program. In the summer of 1976, he attended the Eastern Michigan University drama school to participate in a special Bicentennial Repertory program, where he performed in The Hot L Baltimore and three other plays. Marshall W. Mason was the guest director at EMU, and he invited Daniels to come to New York to work at the Circle Repertory Theatre, where he performed in Fifth of July by Lanford Wilson in the 1977–78 season. Daniels performed in New York in The Shortchanged Review (1979) at Second Stage Theatre.

Daniels starred in several New York productions, on and off Broadway. On Broadway, he made his debut as the assistant stage manager and various roles in the Albert Innaurato play Gemini (1977). He also acted in Lanford Wilson's Fifth of July (1980) alongside William Hurt, for which he was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Best Supporting Actor, and starred in A. R. Gurney's The Golden Age (1984) with Stockard Channing. Daniels made his screen debut in Miloš Forman's Ragtime in 1981. His next film was in James L. Brooks's Terms of Endearment, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture. The film follows an emotional relationship between mother (Shirley MacLaine) and daughter (Debra Winger). Daniels plays Winger's callow and unfaithful husband, a role which would prove to be his breakthrough.

In 1985, Daniels starred in Woody Allen's Purple Rose of Cairo alongside Mia Farrow and Danny Aiello. The film was met with critical praise earning a 91% on Rotten Tomatoes with the consensus reading, "lighthearted and sweet, Purple Rose stands as one of Woody Allen's more inventive – and enchantingly whimsical – pictures." Daniels garnered a Golden Globe Award nomination for his performance. It was the film that inspired the name for the theater company he established. In 1986, he starred in Jonathan Demme's Something Wild as an unassuming businessman swept up into a wild night by a mysterious woman (Melanie Griffith) and earned his second Golden Globe nomination. Also that year, Daniels had a supporting role alongside Jack Nicholson and Meryl Streep in Heartburn, directed by Mike Nichols. In 1988, he co-starred with Kelly McGillis in Peter Yates' neo-noir The House on Carroll Street, and appeared in the ensemble dramedy Sweet Hearts Dance with Susan Sarandon, Don Johnson and Elizabeth Perkins. He had the lead in Checking Out (1989), which received only a limited theatrical release.