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RELATED LINKS

• Mr. Daniels' official site
• Purple Rose Theatre Company
• Good Night, and Good Luck
• The Squid and the Whale

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Tavis: Pleased to welcome Jeff Daniels to this program. The talented actor has had a terrific career in Hollywood. Not bad for a guy who lives in Michigan. His notable films include "Terms of Endearment", "Gettysburg" and "Dumb and Dumber.' He's now out with two new projects -- I ain't mad at you, Jeff -- "The Squid and the Whale" with Laura Linney, opening this past weekend, and "Good Night, and Good Luck" with George Clooney is also in theaters. Sans beard, here is Jeff Daniels. Pleasure. Nice to see you, sir. How are you?

Jeff Daniels: Real good.

Tavis: I grew up in the Midwest in Indiana, so I love people from the Midwest. You have insisted all these years on staying in Michigan, not New York, not L.A., in like a little tiny town with like, what, five hundred people in it?

Daniels: Yeah, something like that (laughter). Very small. Two stoplights.

Tavis: Two stoplights. I grew up in a town with one stoplight. I'll raise you by one stoplight. Small town. Why stay there? Why not New York? Why not L.A.? What does that do to one's career? Obviously, that doesn't hurt you, I guess.

Daniels: Well, it doesn't help. You know, it doesn't help. I was in New York for about ten years doing a lot of theater and the movies started happening when I was there. You know, I got out of the gate pretty good with "Terms of Endearment" and "Purple Rose of Cairo" and "Heartburn". I mean, really good films with good directors and all that. I figured the phone was going to keep ringing and I didn't want to move to L.A. We had one kid and we knew we were going to have more. My wife and I are both from Michigan and we said why don't we just go home?

Tavis: Childhood sweethearts?

Daniels: Knew her in high school.

Tavis: Knew her in high school.

Daniels: But we went home for the family. I mean, we just said family first, career second. That was a close second, but family first. We felt for the kids, you know, it was good for us to grow up there and we just decided to, you know, kind of operate out of there.

Tavis: I suspected you got that order right, family first, career second, but what does it do in terms of the challenge of having a career when every time you do something, you've got to go to one of these directions, I assume?

Daniels: I'm the one on the airplane, not them. They aren't uprooted all the time. They don't have to grow up in an industry town like L.A., so they aren't surrounded by Hollywood which, as you know, there's a lot of fantasy. I didn't want them to grow up and then have to leave it. If they want to go there, they can go there at eighteen or twenty-one, whatever. I was the guy on the red eye, you know, from L.A. to Detroit, so I could see them on the weekends.

They had a sense of normalcy, a sense of one place and yet they could come like to "Dumb and Dumber" and meet Jim Carrey. They could come and meet all these people and see the movies and see the world. We shot "101 Dalmatians" and they got to go to London for like three or four weeks, you know, on Disney's dime. So it's worked out well. The kids are now twenty-one, eighteen and fifteen. It worked; it worked. It's cost me money. It's cost me roles, but the family's great.

Tavis: I can only imagine in this small town, you must be the man (laughter).

Daniels: Well, yeah.

Tavis: Yes, I am. Go ahead and say it.

Daniels: If they throw a parade, I'll cancel it. Let me put it that way. You know what I am? I'm kind of like the hometown team. They want to see me win. They want me to do well. They're so protective of our privacy and the reason that we're living there, so we've kind of blended in with a lot of the people who are there. It's the people from out of town who come in. "We hear he eats at that restaurant at 1:15. Let's go." It's those types.

Tavis: I read somewhere where you said that, with regard to "The Squid" because you got two projects out, you said you took the role because you didn't know how to play it and there was a chance for failure. That's an interesting -- I think I know what you're getting at here, but explain what you meant by that.

Daniels: There's a great challenge. I mean, sometimes you're asked in this business to do that thing you did on the last movie that was really good and made a lot of money. Just do it for us. Actors, people like Laura Linney who's in the movie, I mean, you want to do something you haven't done before and especially something like a character like Bernard in "The Squid and the Whale". It's a big reach. And with great risk, you know, there's a bigger chance of failing. So I worked really hard to deliver for not only Noah Baumbach, the writer-director, but for me just to see if I could pull it off.

Tavis: Well, that begs an explanation then for those who are watching about "The Squid and the Whale".

Daniels: Right. Well, it certainly is the most important film ever made with seafood for a title. Let's just start there. That's a given (laughter). Now there's a metaphor for what "The Squid and the Whale" is that Jesse Eisenberg, the lead kid, has this speech about two-thirds of the way through it. It explains itself.

Tavis: There you have it. "The Squid and the Whale". This other project with George Clooney. I'm fascinated to see this. I haven't see it yet, but I'm fascinated to see it. A lot of buzz about it. Edward R. Murrow. Certainly for a guy who does what I do for a living, you want to go see something like this. Tell me about your character in this project.

Daniels: I play a guy at CBS. You know, this is the time of Edward R. Murrow and McCarthy. George Clooney really did a great job. He and Grant Heslov, I believe his last name is. They just wrote a real great script. But George also shot it in a way that really feels like it's from the 1950's and of that era with overlapping dialog and all that. It was such a joy to do, just as an actor. It felt like theater. You know, it was an important film, an important subject, back then. Murrow took on McCarthyism and kind of the arrogance of power and, as you know, George feels very strongly about the arrogance of power now, so he was very passionate about making this film.

Tavis: Speaking of passion, I get the sense -- I don't know this, but I get the sense on the outside looking in -- that he has developed a reputation in Hollywood as the kind of guy the people want to work with. You look at his projects, the kind of stuff that he does, and I'm getting the sense that people appreciate having the opportunity to work with this guy in this particular space and time. George Clooney, that is.

Daniels: I know I did. I mean, I have like three or four scenes in the movie. The script was good and I wanted to work with George. I mean, not only is he an actor, but he's directing, he's producing. He's got his hands on a lot of things and it's usually things that have great quality to them. So, yeah, actors jump at the chance.

Tavis: You love the Broadway thing, you've mentioned now a couple times in this conversation. How did that happen for you and why this immense love for Broadway specifically?

Daniels: Well, theater in general.

Tavis: Theater in general.

Daniels: But New York theater, yeah. I was in the state of Michigan going to school and I got a break. I met a guy, Marshall Mason, who was the artistic director at Circle Repertory Company, one of the leading off-Broadway theater companies for new American plays and playwrights. At twenty-one, he said, "Come from Michigan and be an apprentice here." I basically grew up as an actor. Artistically I grew up at Circle Rep. I learned so much from Marshall and Lanford Wilson and all the people there. I mean, they taught me what the craft was, how to be an artist, you know, make it all count, and all that stuff stays with you, you know, as you work your way through Hollywood which is sometimes a little more about stardom and fame and money and all that. It was just great.

The theater is where it's pure. I'll tell you, on a movie set, you can tell the guys who've done theater because they've done those shows eight times a week for month after month after month. I mean, they know how to repeat. So when we're on Take 25, it's still the first time it's happening. Where the guys who haven't done theater, they're kind of burned out at Take 3 or Take 4. Now they're starting to re-invent and entertain themselves sometimes, but the theater guys can repeat it and repeat it and repeat it and make it look like it's happening for the first time.

Tavis: You mentioned -- let me go back to something you said earlier because it ties in to this point. You mentioned earlier that, in response to my question about why you would say that you wanted to do something that you thought you could fail at, something you had not done before, I get the sense that you like picking projects that offer some variety. "Dumb and Dumber" is terribly different than obviously "The Squid and the Whale". So is that like important for you to do stuff that is like diametrically opposed to the last --

Daniels: -- what you're really asking is how do you feel about sitting on a toilet in front of millions of people? That's what you really want to know, right?

Tavis: (Laughter) Well, sure.

Daniels: Why would you do something like that?

Tavis: Well, I wouldn't ask you that, but go ahead and answer it then (laughter).

Daniels: No, no, I'll tell you. You want to range. If you're going to live in the Midwest and you're going to kind of take yourself out of the game, but you still want to be a part of it, then I think you've got to have a range. So, yeah, to go from "Dumb and Dumber" to "Gettysburg" to "The Squid and the Whale" or a George Clooney film, I mean, there's this range that you really open yourself up for other opportunities over decades. So that was kind of the plan. The other thing, too, is like with "Dumb and Dumber"; it's a funny movie.

Tavis: It's very funny.

Daniels: It makes people laugh. I know exactly what it is and, believe me, when I sat on the toilet -- I told Pete Farrelly, the director, I said, "Pete, this is either the beginning of my career or the end of it." "No, it's going to be great. Just do it." Okay. But when I did "Blood Work" with Clint Eastwood. First of all, Clint thought "Dumb and Dumber" was hysterical, which blew my mind. You know, that Dirty Harry would -- please don't (laughter). You're ruining it. He said, "If you can do 'Dumber and Dumber' and you can do a serious film like 'Two Days in the Valley', you can do 'Blood Work'." It created a job for me.

Tavis: Speaking of Dirty Harry, before I let you get out of here, The Dirty Harry Blues is one of your songs. I cracked up at this Jeff Daniels Live and Unplugged CD. You do music too.

Daniels: Yeah, yeah. We're on iTunes and jeffdaniels.com and all the money goes to my theater company in Michigan. All the proceeds go there. But it's fun. I've been playing guitar for thirty years and I wrote a song, The Dirty Harry Blues, which chronicles the night in "Blood Work" where Clint shot and killed me, which for an actor is a great honor.

Tavis: I got shot and killed by Clint Eastwood.

Daniels: He even said, "I never liked you, buddy". Boom. This is like very close to sex (laughter). This is very good.

Tavis: (Laughter) It's orgasmic to have Clint Eastwood take you out. Anyway, "The Squid and the Whale", "Good Night, and Good Luck". You can catch Jeff Daniels in any number of projects. Easy for me to say. Jeff, nice to meet you.

Daniels: Thanks, Tavis.

Tavis: Have a safe trip back to Detroit and to the little town outside Detroit that you're living and tell the folk at home we said hello.

Daniels: Thank you, sir.

Tavis: Nice to see you. That's our show for tonight. You can catch me on the weekends on PRI, Public Radio International. Check your local radio listings. I'll see you back here next time on PBS. Until then, good night from Los Angeles. Thanks for watching and, as always, keep the faith.