Jeff Daniels, American actor and playwright
Jeffrey Warren Daniels (born February 19, 1955) is an American actor, musician, and playwright. Known for his work in television, film, and stage, he is the recipient of various accolades, including two Primetime Emmy Awards, in addition to nominations for three Tony Awards, five Screen Actors Guild Awards, and five Golden Globe Awards.
He made his film debut in Miloš Forman's drama Ragtime (1981), and continued to work regularly throughout the 1980s to 1990s in James L. Brooks' Terms of Endearment (1983), Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), Mike Nichols' Heartburn (1986), Arachnophobia (1990), as well as the war epic Gettysburg (1993) and the action film Speed (1994). He found great success in his role in the comedy Dumb and Dumber (1994) opposite Jim Carrey. He also starred in the live-action Disney film 101 Dalmatians (1996), and fantasy film Pleasantville (1998). During the 2000s, Daniels starred in critically acclaimed films such as Stephen Daldry's psychological drama The Hours (2002), Noah Baumbach's coming of age comedy The Squid and the Whale (2005), George Clooney's historical drama Good Night, and Good Luck (2005), and the Truman Capote drama Infamous (2006). He also appeared in the science fiction action film Looper (2012), Danny Boyle's drama Steve Jobs (2015), and Ridley Scott's science fiction film 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 supporting performance in the Netflix miniseries Godless (2017) and an additional nomination that year for his leading performance as John P. O'Neill in the Hulu miniseries The Looming Tower (2018). In 2020 he played FBI director James Comey in The Comey Rule for Showtime. Daniels has also received several award nominations for his work on stage, including Tony Award nominations for Best Actor for his roles in the plays Yasmina Reza's God of Carnage, David Harrower's Blackbird, and Aaron Sorkin's To Kill a Mockingbird. He is the founder and current executive director of the Chelsea, Michigan Purple Rose Theatre Company.