Jeff Daniels

Jeff Daniels

words by > Betsy Model

DUMB. LIKE A FOX

For a lumbering, blond actor who’s perhaps best recognized by at least one generation as one half of Dumb & Dumber, Jeff Daniels thwarts expectations as one of Hollywood’s most accomplished actors.

At 51, actor Jeff Daniels is in his prime. When not acting on a fi lm set, he’s acting on stage, either at the Purple Rose Theatre Company, which he owns, in his hometown of Chelsea, Michigan, or in Off Broadway productions in New York. He writes scripts, directs and produces, and in his spare time he writes and records songs that range in style from fl at-out goofy to soft, poignant ballads—that is, when he’s not accompanying his three children to school and sporting events.

How he manages to juggle it all—including time for magazine interviews—is a bit of a mystery, but then Daniels has had a couple of decades of experience in the Hollywood juggling act, especially since he and his wife of 27 years, Kathleen, decided years ago to forego the actual Hollywood scene and, short of fi lm time, raise their kids in Chelsea.

“Michigan’s real and Chelsea’s real,” Daniels says. “Our families are here, and it just made sense to stay put where we knew things were sane, where we had family and lifelong friends for support, and where the kids could grow up normal, whatever that is.”

And if Chelsea (population 4,300) has been good to Daniels, he has—in at least one specifi c, tangible way—reciprocated the favor. The Purple Rose Theatre Company, a small production theater housed in a beautifully restored historic building, was founded by Daniels and named for the Woody Allen fi lm in which he acted, The Purple Rose of Cairo.

Although he was praised for his role in Terms of Endearment, the 1985 Oscar-nominated Purple Rose was the serious kick-start to his fi lm career. After that, he went on to make a mix of small-budget, independent fi lms and big-screen blockbusters as diverse as Speed, Pleasantville, Fly Away Home and Good Night, and Good Luck.

And if watching Daniels play the role of Harry Dunne opposite actor Jim Carrey in Dumb & Dumber is a rite of passage for most teenage boys, an entirely different audience was dumbfounded by Daniels’ adept performance in the 2005 drama The Squid and the Whale, a role that won him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor.

Daniels’ ability to switch between comedy and drama with such apparent ease has served him well this past year. Even as he was wrapping up fi lming and beginning the press advance for his most recent movie release, RV, opposite Robin Williams, Daniels was also fi lming or fi nishing three additional fi lms scheduled for fall 2006 and spring 2007 release dates.

Like the 2005 fi lm Capote, Infamous (scheduled for release on October 13) is based on the real life of author Truman Capote and his research into the brutal murders that ultimately became the book In Cold Blood. Although the topic is similar in nature, Daniels is confi dent that the fi lm’s director, Doug McGrath, has crafted a fi lm that will stand solidly on its own.

“Infamous is a completely different look at the same story,” says Daniels, “and I’m thrilled with the writing, with the performances and just the way Doug McGrath approached the story. It’s a dark story, but it’s also funny. From the fi rst fi ve minutes on, there’s that Doug McGrath wit—a little sly, a little cynical—that’s in every scene. He seemed to really capture the era of Capote, of when Capote was gallivanting around New York.”

And Daniels has nothing but great things to say about the movie’s lead actor, Toby Jones, who plays the role of Truman Capote. “I thought [Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Oscar-winning performance in Capote] was terrifi c, but I think Toby is equally terrifi c. People are going to be stunned,” the actor enthuses.

Actually, what’s stunning is the fi lming schedule that Daniels endured in the fi rst half of 2006 that yielded yet two more movies to release within months; Mama’s Boy, a comedy that has Daniels playing a self-help guru opposite Diane Keaton, and The Lookout, a drama that has Daniels’ character, who is blind, caught up in a bank heist gone wrong.

When asked if it was diffi cult switching back and forth between two serious, dark dramas and then morphing into the leading role in a romantic comedy, Daniels just laughs and says playing at romance isn’t diffi cult at all when it comes to playing opposite Diane Keaton.

“Romance? With Diane Keaton?” grins Daniels, “Yeah! That’s easy. I had a ball during the fi lming of Mama’s Boy. It’s comedy, sure, but it’s smart comedy, and it was fun.” Daniels tells a story about acting opposite Keaton—when they were doing a scene that had them returning to her home after their fi rst date, he ad-libbed a line and Keaton burst out laughing and fell to her knees. “She quite literally fell to her knees as we were fi lming and couldn’t stop laughing. I broke Diane Keaton!” says Daniels.

It was a completely different scenario, says Daniels, in preparing for The Lookout. To tackle his role in the most believable way, Daniels spent time at the Michigan Commission for the Blind in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The six-foot, three-inch actor admits that it took him a while to become fully comfortable in playing the role of someone without sight.

“I went to the Michigan Commission for the Blind and did some research,” he says, “and the people there couldn’t have been more helpful. I spent time really observing and asking all these dumb questions and got a list of ‘shortcuts,’ like the dos and don’ts of walking with a cane.”

“I play a blind acoustic-guitar player who mentors a young man who’s still going through rehabilitation following a car accident,” he continues. “He’s had a brain injury and is learning to adapt, and during that process he lives with me, in my home. The young man [played by Joseph

Gordon-Levitt] gets himself into some trouble and kind of drags me into it.”

The good news in taking on the role, says Daniels, was that playing a guitar player was a no-brainer for the accomplished musician and something he could do sighted or not. “Playing my own guitar was a lot of fun, and that part was easy,” he says.

When wearing sunglasses in the fi lm, Daniels admits that closing his eyes behind the sunglasses was the easiest way to play his character. “Close your eyes and you’re there,” he says. “When the sunglasses are off, you can’t do that. For me, it was kind of like going into a daydream—your eyes are open, but you don’t look at what you’re looking at. You try to get to that state where you’re really not focused, you’re not looking at whatever you’re supposedly looking at, what’s in front of you. You let sounds turn your head.”

What apparently hasn’t turned Daniels’ head is fame. When not caught up in the many entertainment projects that make up his career, he vacations and takes lengthy trips with his family, but often chooses a mode of travel related to his recent fi lm. That’s right, Daniels takes the family’s RV, a 1998 Gulfstream Tour Master, on the road. However, Daniels admonishes, “We do not call it an RV. We call it a bus, and if you refer to it as an RV, we stop the bus and make you get out and walk around it, and then allow you to get back in. Maybe.”