| Net Worth: | $50 Million |
|---|---|
| Profession: | Professional Actor |
| Date of Birth: | February 19, 1955 |
| Country: | United States of America |
| Height: | 1.9 m |
About Jeff Daniels
Daniels was a leading man in a number of New York productions, both on and off Broadway, from the mid-1970s until the early 1990s. While co-starring with William Hurt in Lanford Wilson’s Fifth of July (1980) on Broadway, Daniels earned a nomination for the Drama Desk Award for Best Supporting Actor. Together with Stockard Channing, he co-starred in The Golden Age (1984), written and directed by A. R. Gurney.
Robert Lee “Bob” Daniels and Marjorie J. (née Ferguson) Daniels are Daniels’ parents. They had their first child, Daniels, in Athens, Georgia. He lived the first six weeks of his life in Georgia, where his dad was then teaching, before traveling back to his parents’ native Michigan, where he grew up in Chelsea. His father was the former mayor of Chelsea and owner of the local lumber company.
After meeting in college, Daniels wed Kathleen Rosemary Treado, a Michigan native and Chelsea native who was also from Michigan in 1979. Benjamin was born in 1984, Lucas in 1987, and Nellie in 1988.
In 1985, Daniels played in Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose Of Cairo starring Mia Farrow and Danny Aiello. Lighthearted and lovely, Purple Rose stands as one of Woody Allen’s more imaginative — and enchantingly fanciful — pictures,” was the critical consensus after the film’s 91% score on Rotten Tomatoes. For his work, Daniels was nominated for a Golden Globe. The film was the impetus for the creation of the theatrical troupe’s moniker.
His second Golden Globe nomination came in 1986 for his role as an unassuming businessman who is caught away in a crazy night by a strange woman (Melanie Griffith) in Something Wild, directed by Jonathan Demme.
His primary residence since 1986 and into 2016 has been Chelsea, Michigan, his birthplace. Both Love Hurts and The Butcher’s Wife starred Daniels in 1990. His next big part was in Gettysburg as Colonel Joshua Chamberlain. By the time the prequel picture Gods and Generals came out 10 years later, Daniels had already returned to the part of Chamberlain.
Founded by Daniels in 1991, the Purple Rose Theatre Company (PRTC) produces theatrical works. The Rose, formerly the Garage Theatre, gets its name from the 1985 Woody Allen film The Purple Rose of Cairo, which starred Daniels and Mia Farrow.
During the nineties, Daniels resumed his work in the theater with Redwood Curtain (1993), Off-Broadway, he played in Lanford Wilson’s Lemon Sky with Cynthia Nixon where he won a Drama Desk nomination for and an Obie Award.
In 1994, Daniels co-starred with Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber, one of Carrey’s most financially successful films. Considering Daniels’s reputation as a dramatic actor, this role was a radical change for him. In the same year, Daniels co-starred with Keanu Reeves in the action hit Speed, which grossed over $350 million worldwide.
Fly Away Home, starring Anna Paquin and starring Jeff Daniels as her loving but single father, was a popular with families in 1996. Prior to the debut of Disney’s live-action adaptation of 101 Dalmatians in 1996, Daniels would host Saturday Night Live for a second time. In 2 Days in the Valley, Daniels co-stars with Eric Stoltz as gritty police officer Alvin Strayer. Daniels played the role of the owner of a litter of dalmatians that were taken by the villainous Cruella De Vil (Glenn Close). Earning $320 million worldwide, the picture was a smashing financial success.
After that, Daniels’s next film, Trial and Error, was met with negative reviews and poor box office results (1997). However, he would find success again in the 1998 film Pleasantville, where he played diner owner Bill Johnson, who, at the prompting of Tobey Maguire’s David, learns to act as an individual and rebel against the standard.
Since the turn of the millennium, he has primarily worked in the theater, performing at The Purple Rose Theatre, and has also written, starred in, and directed the films Escanaba in da Moonlight and Super Sucker. In that same year, he worked with Meryl Streep, Julianne Moore, and Nicole Kidman in Stephen Daldry’s Oscar-winning The Hours. Moreover, the picture was a critical and commercial triumph, earning over $100 million worldwide.
In 2003, he starred in Gods and Generals and I Witness, an action picture that also starred James Spader. Later, in 2004, Daniels starred in a TV movie adaption of The Five People You Meet in Heaven, written by his friend and fellow Michigander Mitch Albom.
In 2005, Daniels had a breakout year when he co-starred with Laura Linney in the critically acclaimed picture The Squid and the Whale, directed by Noah Baumbach. To date, this is Daniels’ third Golden Globe nomination. Daniels co-starred with Toby Jones, Sandra Bullock, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Sigourney Weaver in the 2006 Truman Capote film Infamous. On May 25, 2006, in Lansing, Michigan, he was honored by having his name etched into the Michigan Walk of Fame.
After a hiatus of 16 years, God of Carnage marked Daniels’ return to Broadway, where he starred with Hope Davis, James Gandolfini, and Marcia Gay Harden. Soon after, he began appearing in supporting roles in political thrillers like Traitor and State of Play, both of which starred Don Cheadle and Russell Crowe and Rachel McAdams. Daniels also made a cameo in the 2009 indie smash Away We Go.
In 2010, Daniels maintained his career on stage and co-starred with James Franco (in the part of Allen Ginsberg) in the independent film Howl. Two issues of 2011’s Making Music (July/August) and Guitar Aficionado (April/May) contained interviews with Daniels, in which he talked about his musical background and career.
The role of fictional news anchor Will McAvoy in Aaron Sorkin’s HBO drama series The Newsroom (2012-2014) gave Daniels a career boost. More than 13 million people have watched the opening sequence from the pilot episode “We Just Decided To” in which Daniels delivers a monologue about the current state of American greatness.
In 2012, Apple began using Daniels as their new narrator for its iPhone 5 commercials. For his performance as Will McAvoy in the HBO political drama series The Newsroom, he was nominated for a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild Award, and the 2013 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series.
The part of David, which he originated in The Divergent Series: Allegiant, was scheduled to be his again in the sequel, Ascendant. In 2014’s Dumb and Dumber To, he reunited with Jim Carrey in the character of Harry Dunne.
In 2015, Sorkin teamed up with Daniels again for the biographical drama film Steve Jobs, which also starred Michael Fassbender and Kate Winslet. He was CEO John Sculley in the play. Michael Fassbender and Kate Winslet, who co-starred with Daniels, were both nominated for Academy Awards for their work in the film.
Daniels made a comeback to Broadway in 2016, co-starring with Michelle Williams in the revival of David Harrower’s Blackbird.
The play, directed by Joe Mantello and starring a large ensemble cast, premiered on February 5, 2016 (with 37 previews) at the Belasco Theatre and ran through June 11, 2016 (with 108 performances).
Daniels received his second Tony Award nomination for Best Actor in a Play The Tony Awards also recognized Williams’s work. Daniels played the antagonist Frank Griffin in the 2017 western miniseries Godless, available on Netflix. Atticus Finch in Aaron Sorkin’s stage adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird, in which Daniels starred in 2018. On Broadway, at the Shubert Theatre, the play first premiered.
2018’s The Looming Tower, a miniseries on Hulu from writer-director Lee Daniels, follows the rise of Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda in the late 1990s and how the competition between the FBI and CIA at the time may have unwittingly paved the way for 9/11. Daniels.
In 2019, it was revealed that the drama American Rust, adapted on Philipp Meyer’s breakthrough novel of the same name, had been awarded a straight-to-series order by Showtime. Daniels will star in the film with Maura Tierney and Bill Camp in addition to serving as the project’s executive producer. Scott Rudin, the show’s producer, revealed in June 2019 that Daniels would be replaced by Ed Harris in the next November 2019 season. Last night was Daniels’ last show ever.
Daniels has publicly stated his support for Joe Biden to run against Donald Trump in 2020. The swing state of Michigan was the centerpiece of his narration for a Biden campaign ad titled “America Needs Michigan” Daniels says he voted for Joe Biden because “Michigan deserves a president who believes in things like decency, honesty and respect” in the commercial. He portrayed FBI Director James Comey in Showtime’s The Comey Rule in 2020.
On September 1, 2021, Apple TV+ launched a documentary titled 9/11: Inside the President’s War Room, which Daniels narrated. It was revealed in June 2021 that Daniels would be reprising his role as Atticus Finch in the October 2021 revival of To Kill a Mockingbird on Broadway. To recognize his work on Arachnophobia, a nematode parasite that kills tarantulas was given the name Tarantobelus jeffdanielsi in 2022.
