How ‘The Newsroom’ Changed Jeff Daniels’ Career

Jeff Daniels is a celebrated actor whose range extends from the witty like will McAvoy to the half-witted like his character in Dumb and Dumber after a 30-year career in film and TV and on stage filled with ups and downs he landed behind the anchor desk in HBO's the newsroom and won an Emmy for his performance since then he's become a hot commodity again in Hollywood playing John Sculley and a forthcoming movie about Steve Jobs is also in that forthcoming movie called the Martian with Matt Damon so I went up to Jeff's house in Chelsea Michigan to talk about all that and some politics we started by talking about why a Hollywood star has lived in the Wolverine state since 1986 I didn't born here but you were raised here you were deer fly okay so here we are in Chelsea Mischka my god you were raised here and then you moved back here almost 30 years ago and have been here pretty much ever since there's a year's worth of therapy to figure out why I did that but yeah I grew up here I grew up on this lake I live on a lake and at the end of about 10 years in New York City I had about three or four movies I'd done Purple Rose of Cairo with woody so the career was kind of doing there so we had a two year-old boy at the time and we said we don't know how to raise our kid in a one-bedroom apartment and we're gonna have more and why don't we just go back to Michigan probably ran home but we went home to raise our kids there because we knew how to raise kids in Michigan and and I would just use the airport to go around because I the career was not going to last right they never do they never I was a fatalist on going well I got three four five six movies out of it so and then somebody call us one day and says by the way you're over and that's happened I've asked my agent I said you know casting a thing I said what about so and so he goes no no he's over and so I figured when I was over I'd be home despite what Thomas Wolfe warned us against yeah but you can't you can go home again as long as you go home young enough it's just it's just it's just different we could spend all day talking about every movie you've been made over your life but I'm just interested in this Woody Allen Jim Brooks Jonathan Demi you know you're working with some pretty heavy directors now really Scott just if you think back over the career about those guys there were some of those people are like some of the greatest words of our age right like what stands out in your mind is the compare/contrast whose most memorable whose most brilliant who you enjoy working with most just talk about that kind of panoply of great directors every single one of them even mentioned including Robert Altman and Mike Nichols Matthew arches on Broadway and God of Carnage I mean there and I'm forgetting some they all wanted to see what you thought it was they didn't come in and hover the mediocre ones come in and get their hands on you have you done anything yet so you're constantly walking onto the set and they're going go ahead Altman said it was 90% casting and and there's a freedom and that Clint's the same way I mean Clinton was I remember calling clean Eastwood on blood work and because there was a brown bomber jacket and a black bomber jacket and plus I just wanted to call Clint so I just said I'd like to talk to Clint so I call him plant I know Clint I'm just I'm wondering if it should be the brown jacket or the black jacket goes you're the actor maybe the brown one it sounds like the brown one all right good good terrific they leave it up to you and there's a freedom in that and there's a responsibility you can't [ __ ] about well I can't believe what they did with it well can you just see them and that's not the performance I gave no they're gone give us the performance you think it should be the good ones do that they all did that all of them did that I remember doing newsroom and because I was now in the land of television and with TV series you get a different director usually every episode and some of them you know and they're on the show and some of them they brought in from outside and so I just kind of let it be known five words or less what if you're going to direct me it's five words or less you're a writer you're good director pick the right words but don't come into fits six or more stay in the chair and that just forces them to come in and go maybe would learn more anger okay all right theater of movies preference just are just different obviously different but in your heart are you drawn back to the stage I go back to the stage and I will probably pretty soon here because it's the ultimate testing ground I remember on terms of endearment Jack I was the last one on the set to meet Jack Nicholson and winger took me over and I met him and he goes are you doing kid oh I'm doing fine he goes he said what have you done I said well I've you know done some Broadway off-broadway he goes well this ain't Broadway this is the pro game and you know you walk away offended and then you go no it was because at 4:30 in the morning with the Sun coming up and the close-ups on you and it's the big speech you got one take maybe two and how much money is rolling with the trucks and the camera and the personnel you got to hit it because the critics a year from now aren't going to care whether it was 4:30 in the morning they don't care that you hit it or not and it's the same thing with at Northwestern speech you know the Sorkin road in newsroom there was absolutely no evidence to support the statement that were the greatest country in the world were 7th and literacy 27th and math 22nd in science 49th and life expectancy 178th in infant mortality third and median household income number four in labor ports are number four in exports we lead the world in only three categories number of incarcerated citizens per capita number of adults who believe angels are real and defense spending where we spend more than the next 26 countries combined 25 of whom her allies now know this is the fault of a twenty-year-old college student but you nonetheless are without a doubt a member of the worst period generation period ever periods when you ask what makes us the greatest country in the world I don't know what though you're talking about that was a huge day day 3 of an 18 days shoe on the pilot we don't have a series yet we're just a pilot maybe and four add three three actors came just to see the speech weren't even in the scene we had number two three and four from HBO there Aaron's going like this and do we have a will McAvoy day three and the pro game you got to hit it it's ten seconds less left hit the ball hit the here's the ball hit the shot you got to hit the shot and and that's what Jack meant so what is it in a role that attracts you like what is it when you see it I mean I know everybody and of course the long career right you do some parts because you need to pay the rent go into other parts because that's what's on the table but you know when what is it whether it's stage or screen what is it when you read it on the page when you see it you say I want to play that it's really good it's well-written the story works the structure works it's unpredictable the turn in act 3 I didn't see coming but the character I got to play I can't sit her and go oh I know how did that guy I've done him six times I'll do that guy again I don't I'm not a brand and that's that's what I learned in Hollywood was go to LA and create a brand and they've been doing it for decades Gable was a brand you know even Spencer Tracy as great as he was what we want to see Spencer Tracy be Spencer Tracy so I didn't want to do that I didn't think I could live in Michigan and be a brand because I once once you outgrow when you hit then you age 1020 years later and you no longer look like that you either got to get you know everything fixed or you need to be a character actor and so I just decided to be a character actor from day one and I've tried to you know that's the reason from a newsroom to a dum-dum or two to a Gettysburg to it that's that's I enjoy that I enjoy going I can see why they want me to do that but I couldn't do it today I got to work on that to figure out how to do it so that it's slightly different because it is slightly different from anybody else at play that interests me okay let's talk about the newsroom what was it that about McAvoy that made you want to plan aaron sorkin putting the words in his mouth I was a huge fan of West Wing I told Aaron when I met him that you know I watched West Wing on whatever net Bravo I think I watched the writing I love watching writing I mean it's I understand movies where you hide the writing and actors ad-lib all over it and sometimes they're brilliant sometimes they're just diarrhea the mouth but to have something well written and to have the writing be as much of a character as it was on West Wing I said I there's a I just hope and he's doing the same thing on newsroom and he does that's how Aaron works so the show was polarizing kind of from the moment it started oh yeah you know there was just tons and tons of video I wouldn't say controversial but it was polarizing right yeah and people even from that first speech yeah that first speech I cleared the room or you jumped in the bleachers right and you had like lots of the right you know saying you know this is Aaron Sorkin's anti-americanism or sometimes maybe Jeff Daniels is there any Americanism or whoever's an Americanism got put on what is it about the show do you think that made it so polarizing and so not again I want to use the word controversial because these aren't real controversies but it elicited very extreme reactions from people in our business and people outside our business well I found it interesting that some of the critics in their reaction and newsroom especially that first season we're so volatile we're so personal particularly at Aaron I mean the show had politics right yeah and so that's part of why it's polarizing because there are some number of people who don't share Sorkin's politics that's fine did you basically identify with this character and with that worldview or were you essentially just an actor inhabiting a role I read that speech particularly in the northwestern speech and said what's in it that's not true Louis insurance said it diversity not I mean maybe there's some sarcasm maybe there's some flowery way you know we lead the world and adults who believe in angels and things like that I can see how that would piss some people off but we do so I you know you're playing it all looked true to me but you can also see the other side of McAvoy because you know by about third or fourth episode of season one they said oh by the way he's a Republican which they knew but I didn't at all okay all right and then here comes some of that he believes in a I don't know a markets this free market system and a strong military in a defense and all that but you know McAvoy is not into the social end of things he's not into telling women what to do with her bodies and this and that the other thing and and that's where I think Aaron was getting mark McKinnon was a consultant on the show it was very helpful and Mark was going it's there are a lot of us moderate Republicans out there that are gone you know he everybody wants to get the money right and let's not spend what we don't have however stay out of that stay out of that and that's all changed when you were saying these things beyond the questions of the he makes a bunch of factual statements about America in that one speech but throughout the show there's a you know McAvoy is a moderate Republican you know why would you put a gun to my head and I'm a Democrat right I just am right because of the compressed the compassionate you can't I mean I'm waiting for the Republican Party get its head out but it's out of its ass I really am and I don't know whether it's the political system which you know far more about than I do the ego the ambition the camera time the the marketing of a candidate you're a product you know even Obama was marketed as hope and change and all and and now you got all these guys and you're just going don't don't try to tell me how to live you know don't try to tell me how to live don't don't hold a gun in one hand and a Bible in the other you can't do that and yet they do it and then you get and I know the world is is the true religion the true God in this world is the almighty dollar it really is and I wish it weren't and so i wherever the politics are for the compassion this comes from my dad you take care of the next guy you make it better than your where we are you make it better than I found it and if that's that's what you're doing and you're a Republican or you're Democrat I'll vote for you that's the person what are you doing to make it better for someone other than yourself you can't you can't in this corporation of America you cannot sit there and have offshore accounts for your corporations so you don't pay taxes and then ask other people's children to sacrifice their lives for your freedom what do you think the country country should be looking for in its next president what are you looking for in your next president I'm looking for someone who's going to take care of the middle class I really am and right now the Democrats are making that noise Hilary's are certainly making that noise I don't know enough about any of these people but and it you know it's not just Republicans and it's it's it's the lobbyists it's the special interest you feel like they're governing or they're getting elected to serve them and that's on both sides of the aisle and I would give anything to have lobbyists and special interest out of Washington I would what England has a political system where it's six weeks long or something right I've said let's put whoever it ends up being on the left on the right put them on two tree stumps in Union Square in New York City and let's film it and let them do it just like Lincoln and Douglas did let them go at each other but there's way too much money the almighty dollar there's way too much money in a two-year presidential campaign the fact that these people are going to raise a billion dollars to run for president people don't give you money and not want something in return and if you're just out here sitting in Michigan going I wonder if I'm truly represented I didn't give so-and-so a hundred grand PAC I'm not on a list I don't get to sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom I wonder if I'm being represented probably not that's what pisses off a lot of us and that's what was behind that speech and that was behind the character and what Aaron was writing about do you think that the news media is falling short that we're not doing our jobs and if so in what ways no I think that I think most of the majority of the people in the media on television in particular are in the struggle to get it right not first are having a battling to cover stories that may or may not impact someone sitting in Michigan but that someone is sitting in Michigan should know what's going on in the Soudan but we have to run Casey Anthony again because that's the ratings that's where the ratings are you know CNN ran there you know the sewage cruise ship you know through the for a week or something cruise poop cruise and and chasing the Malaysian airline for ever I mean I get it I get it and but it's it's that's where the ratings are and it isn't necessarily but there are a lot of people a lot of people in the media fighting against that and but you still have to go on the air especially on the cable side for an hour every day and cover it and and that's I learned that that's a battle that you guys all fight you're standing there on the street in Boston the bombs have blown up and you got to keep talking because the next breaks in 18 minutes and you have no new information none you have two facts that you've known for two hours nothing's confirmed rumors John Kings gets makes a mistake and goes with something on Twitter that Aaron ended up writing about and really said it's not Kings fault it could have been anybody trying to be first and that whole thing of guys screaming in uragan saying go with it go with it go with it that's what I learned doing newsroom is that there are guys on the street going I can't go with that yet the Charlie Skinner's you know go we don't have it we don't have it we don't have it well they already ran it they already ran we don't have it great gratulations your fourth you know and aaron wrote about that and that you know we didn't because we're so instant gratification because we have to know now we don't you know when when LJ drove around LA which is I thought the birth of coordinate everybody we didn't have twitter we all were glued to CNN that white Bronco white Bronco and now what's what's bothersome to Aaron and to me and others is and I'll bet people in media as we are turning on CNN or Bloomberg or whatever we're going to Twitter we're looking at Twitter going oh they've got the guy holed up in a house he's holed up in oh I know sorry an hour later it's not the guy it's not it's not citizen detectives citizen journalists and and you know Cronkite and Merle those guys they got confirmation they got it solid before they went with it so you look back on newsroom is nothing but good people had different wildly opposing views about its value when you look back on your like I'm proud of this I think the show was great and it was nothing but good from the point of view of like hub my sense of pride and having made it that's my sense from what the way you talk about oh yeah personally as an actor in the long career looking over a lot of roles a highlight and the fact that it was only three seasons you know that people are going to be looking at that series 20 years from now peep the north-western speech that Aaron wrote will outlive both of us whatever YouTube is 50 years from now you're going to see that speech you're going to find it somewhere and people are going to go huh and just for that reason alone it was worth it alright and a big deal for you right I mean it came at an interesting point in yeah it came at a at an important point an opportune points in your career arc and has had hugely positive ramifications coming out talk about that well for an actor in his in his time mid to late 50s I mean there are guys that are talented as hell who can't get work at that age guys that I was coming up with 20 years ago that were we were sharing waiting rooms together and they're gone I got to get a job this year and they're just they're old and and so to have through a series of events find myself at a restaurant with Aaron Sorkin having a breakfast meeting about a show called newsroom and the guy wrote West Wing I wasn't leaving that table until I got the part and then to win the Emmy in your first year I'm HBO was saying maybe you're 3 you'll get nominated against a pretty tough field oh my god Spacey and Damian Lewis and Bryan Cranston Jon Hamm Who am I forgetting I mean great people Hugh Bonneville of Downton Abbey great luck they're all great it's like running the Kentucky Derby in six different directions you know we're all going to cross the finish line great one of us has to get up and give a speech but and that was really the Emmy was was the Emmy night was I we we went you know and the limo and went and and I stayed off the internet I wouldn't look at it and I finally said to Kathleen eyes my wife I said you know what are my chances you know really again fatalistic like why should we even going and she said well it's between you and Hugh Bonneville for fifth or sixth I said okay okay thank you my dear I said so let's go let's go for the food and the show started and she even gave me gum you know your breath okay right so I'm chewing gum cuz there's no reason there's no reason we're not rear for the salmon or the steak or the steak so supporting actress Merritt Wever wins for Nurse Jackie great performance not a show seen by a lot of people certainly not like the Modern Family girls and all of that she wins Tony Hale Best Supporting Actor for veep again other shows many more viewers Tony Hale wins Julia wins that's kind of like yeah and and now we're into Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series and it's Aaron Paul and it's Mandy Patinkin and it's a load of John Slattery Bobby Cannavale II Boardwalk Empire and I looked at Bobby and Bobby gets up looks at me like oh and I'm like going I'm watching him and I'm going the wrong people or winning the wrong people I better get something ready now okay okay okay okay let's see HBO thank them Kathleen yes do that cast and crew okay I'm not going to go through a whole list of names great I'll do that's the middle Lanford Wilson I have a quote from a Golden Globe nomination where I didn't win that I had about Lanford Wilson but our artists another great I'll do that I need a joke at the front I need a joke at the front need a joke at the front and you did joke at the front Julia margulies is their best actor in a dramatic series the nominees are and she starts going Kevin Spacey Bryan Cranston eat a joke made a joke made a joke made a joke need a joke and it gets the line and the winner is they all the AARP thing oh yeah Jeff Daniels newsroom oh okay okay get up I get up I've been sitting for an hour and a half I mean I'm not young right so we don't pop up anymore the knees are going where are we going the knee is going so I'm like oh so I get up and I have this look on my face like that and I get up and I look either obsessed that I've won or I'm constipated one of the tubes and I go up the stairs and I just when I go you know I don't win things like this the last thing I won was in a few years ago for squid in the whale I won the best actor over 50 from the AARP with all due respect to the AARP this is better so there was my opening joke killed you were not that let's just just as a matter of fact right it's fair to say that you were not as in demand prior to newsroom and the Emmy as you are today yeah we were heading heading to playing a lot of guitar a lot of clubs that's where I was headed which would it would it wouldn't find but no I newsroom bought me ten years right and and I think the ten years will be I've gotten a lot of you know I'm in the jobs movie that Aaron wrote but it's another really smart character and a lot of dialogue and that's what I seem to be getting offered and some of the other things I'm doing now is oh here's an actor who can handle a lot of dialogue and he can play smart cuz McEvoy was highly educated and so those are great bad guys you know the guys that are just doing it and then the young hero arts outsmarts main act three each said before you know if this hadn't happened if newsroom hadn't happened you were going to be spend a lot more time playing music music is a big part of your life you've done six albums I think thanks Ilya so just talk about that like I think boat most people you know much more familiar with your work on stage and screen and [ __ ] on and they are with your with you but but music real passion of yours when did that start and what role does that play in your life I think it came also it came from the fatalist that moved back to Michigan thinking the career wouldn't last and I wanted to stay creative when it was over it didn't end but the guitar and writing was always something that I was interested in I knew I was in New York and LA to be an actor so let's not confuse the issue just play guitar get better write songs on your back porch leave it there now I've got to do it for you and that's a whole other Magilla and that took that took some time to figure out how to walk out on a stage and do that but once I figured that out then it's the guy who can walk out on a Broadway stage and feel right at home except now I got a guitar and so I kind of incorporated that guy and so it's become this thing that I can do that I really enjoy because there's no editor no writer no producer no studio no nothing just me and a hundred or 500 people going my job is to entertain you for 90 minutes with a three-act structure top everything else you also get to do with your son I've been my son Ben has a band and we've gone out on tour three times and we just came off the road a couple weeks ago and it's just the father-son aspect I've written a lot of songs that need a band and I thought well let's get a Viagra band you know get all those old guys your age and you know let's go out but to have a young band back there with some energy and they play a very Dave Matthews kind of I mean they can take the song I wrote and go what about if we did this with it and suddenly it's better that's cool that's cool let me pause actually one last political question something I didn't really ask you directly I know you said before we talked a little bit about about you made a reference to Obama being like all of them a little bit you know he's a marketed commodity right there's an there's a they're all they're all I am just not singling him out him saying like all of them right so you were presumably an Obama supporter oh god yeah yeah and what wasn't you saw in him that I still love him right you still love him absolutely I look what you say on the campaign trail and men and you're going to change and the fact that I was alive when this country made history by making him president I love it absolutely love it I want smart in the White House I want smart sitting across from Putin I want smart dealing with the Middle East I don't want dumb I don't want corporate you know thug ID I want somebody who's a friend of the Koch brothers I don't want it I want somebody who can sit there and match wits the guys that were brilliant the FDR's the Churchill's the Kennedys you know those guys that's what we need to lead our countries somebody with intellect and intelligence and brains and and he's got that he just has that and you can [ __ ] and moan about and and Congress needs to take huge accountability for the whatever has not gone right in the last eight years they've done nothing but say no and so he's had to deal with that and maybe he's had to meet in the middle like all of repress had to meet in the middle Reagan and Tip O'Neill they had to meet in the middle and you know I don't know enough about the Polish to know where he's failed miserably and didn't do this and that but now I I'm glad he was president I'm glad I was allowed to see it and you think the same way when you think oh you considered the prospect of Hillary Clinton also a potentially historic candidate I love the history I love the the historical nature of it yeah I love that that it's you know what you want change let's put a woman in there and by the way and I know she's tied in politically and and they are the Clintons and all that I don't know anything about that all I know is that she's smart she's smart as hell you don't put yourself among Democrats who kind of look on who kind of look at the Clinton thing I kind of say well you know you're enthused about it you're not sort of like you're not going to be one of those Democrats just kind of like wow you know I guess she's the best we can do I I think it's the best this system is allowing us to do because we branded a Clinton and we branded a Jeb Bush if it's not Jeb and Hillary come election time I'd be very surprised just because that's what the brands are and maybe it won't be Jeb I don't know it doesn't seem like Hillary's got anybody that's going to challenge it right I wish it were someone brand new but when you get you get an Obama eight years ago and he's sitting down with Putin for the first time or you know you've got inexperience there and you've got to catch up she's got all that she's got all that world experience I love that she was Secretary of State and and has met all these people and is a world figure instead of a fresh face from the democratic or Republican Party that now has to go introduce himself to leaders around the world I don't mind the experience and that you smart that I I like that combination it'd be nice it was somebody new and fresh but that also means inexperienced it doesn't trouble you at all I mean one of the things that you know we here we talk to people I mean average like normal voters not elites but you know another Clinton another Bush like really you know who we wants to run for any office now yeah who would want the scandal right I mean all you got to do is Google I'm going to run for governor of Michigan no I'm gonna run for governor in Michigan BAM Jeff Daniel scandal but now they're going through everything they're digging up everything they can possibly dig up on me who wants to put themselves through that so you get a Clinton that's look here's all the but where's everything we've already seen it you get Bush you get you get the standards you don't there are a lot of people that I think that would have gone into politics thirty years ago then aren't going near it now near just because who who needs it who needs that scrutiny thank you for uh for giving me an idea now you got you said you had ten got ten more years on the acting career now after the news room thing so you get ten more years and then governor of Michigan yeah yeah that's good you'll know the state's gone don't you know what that happens this would be the seat of power Chelsea Michigan I'll sit in the governor's office wearing shorts and a flannel shirt yeah I'll be I'll make jesse ventura look like he's politically sound yeah okay and with that what did you would do thank you Jeff thanks Jeff

Channel: Bloomberg Quicktake

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Length: 32min 13sec (1933 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 07 2015