Jeff Daniels discusses the two phases of his career

Hollywood actor Jeff Daniels says there was a time when he was picking projects to support his family, and is glad that he has reached a point where he can risk failure and challenge himself.


“There have been two phases to my career,” Daniels said. “One was to take the best of things that you are offered at the time because I have to work so much a year just to support my family. So certainly, and I’d say everything leading up to ‘The Newsroom’ was what was the best out there and let’s go get it. Sometimes, it ended up being really good projects like ‘The Purple Rose Of Cairo’, ‘Something Wild’ and ‘Dumb And Dumber’. It just blew through and made an impact. It wasn’t just doing a movie that people forget,” added the Emmy-winning star.

It was his political drama television series “The Newsroom”, which premiered in 2012, which got him interested in the craft again.

“After ‘The Newsroom’, I got interested again about acting and staying with it, versus just going (with it). ‘The Newsroom’ bought me 10 years, and bought me ‘Godless’, ‘The Looming Tower’, Atticus Finch (role in ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’), Broadway, and it bought me ‘The Comey Rule’. These are all complicated roles that risk failure every time you go out there,” said the actor, who made his film debut in 1981 with “Ragtime”.

The 65-year-old actor continued: “After 44 years of doing this, what I need to do is risk failure and challenge myself, in order to stay interested. I’ve been lucky in that later in my career. I’ve gotten those opportunities.”

At the moment, Daniels is getting applauds for his portrayal as the former FBI Director James Comey in mini-series “The Comey Rule”. Co-tarring Brendan Gleeson as US President Donald Trump, the two-part series explores the relationship between the two powerful men, and gives audience a view into the inside world of powerful people. It is based on Comey’s bestselling book “A Higher Loyalty”.

With voting for the US president election starting, the actor feels the show can inform people to make a more sounded judgement.

“I don’t know about influence, but I think it can inform people… The show will give people more information about something that they think they know, but they don’t really… We’re smarter now than we were four years ago. And my hope is that ‘The Comey Rule’ reminds people not to believe everything you hear coming out of the White House. There are still people who do, but there are many people who did but don’t any longer. There are two sides to this particular story. One is that Trump says Comey is a liar. ‘The Comey Rule’ is the other side to the story. Now go vote,” he said.

“The Comey Rule” is available on Voot Select in India.