Jeff Daniels

Jeff Daniels is an actor, musician, and playwright whose career includes roles in films, stage productions, and television, for which he has won two Primetime Emmy Awards and received several Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild, and Tony Award nominations.

He made his film debut in Miloš Forman's 1981 drama Ragtime and continued to work regularly throughout the 1980s to 1990s in James L. Brooks' Terms of Endearment, Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo, Mike Nichols' Heartburn as well as the war epic Gettysburg and the action film Speed. He found great success in his role in the comedy 1994's Dumb and Dumber opposite Jim Carrey. He also starred in the live-action Disney film 101 Dalmatians and the 1998 fantasy film Pleasantville. During the 2000s, Daniels starred in critically acclaimed films such as Stephen Daldry's psychological drama The Hours, Noah Baumbach's coming-of-age comedy The Squid and the Whale, George Clooney's historical drama Good Night, and Good Luck, and the Truman Capote drama Infamous. He also appeared in the science fiction action film Looper, Danny Boyle's drama Steve Jobs, and Ridley Scott's science-fiction comedy The Martian.

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 a number of 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–based Purple Rose Theatre Company.