Jeff Daniels

Saw Jeff Daniels tonight at a SAG screening in Hollywood of his new film The Squid and the Whale. Set in 1986 Brooklyn, the movie was hilarious and touching. It deals with serious emotional family issues in a humorous but sincere way. Very surprising and fresh.

Jeff Daniels appeared after the film for an interview and Q & A session with the audience. He's always been a favorite of mine, consistently good in every role whether third-billed or starring. With a career spanning 29 years, as he pointed out twice in his comments, he has played in films as diverse as Dumb and Dumber, Gettysburg, Pleasantville, Terms of Endearment, and his first starring role, The Purple Rose of Cairo.

He's worked with some of the biggest in the biz: Woody Allen, Mike Nichols, Meryl Streep, Jack Nicholson, and...Keanu Reeves (in Speed). His performance in The Squid and the Whale is a fine addition to his already broad palette of roles, and the spin is already headed toward an Oscar nomination, if you follow the early hype.

It is his capability for playing extremely diverse characters which has been the key to his success, said Daniels. Portraying a deranged cop in the drama 2 Days in the Valley and following with 101 Dalmations (which has yet to make enough money to pay any residuals, he griped) demonstrates a wider stretch than the average working actor, in terms of richness of character and budget.

Maintaining a normal family life with his wife and three kids in his home state of Michigan has been the trade-off in place of the typical Hollywood rewards of fame and wealth. Mr. Daniels has made a decent enough living dividing his time between blockbusters and independent features to finance his own dream theater company in Michigan which produces only original works by Midwestern American playwrights.

In person, Jeff Daniels definitely has star quality, but tonight he seemed more like "the star next door", wearing blue jeans, cowboy boots and a brown corduroy blazer with too-long sleeves. And he has surprisingly boyish good looks for a man 50 years old. He has also retained his thick blonde hair, which he kept fussing with during the interview.

Grounded in his success, he encouraged the striving actors in the 300-strong SAG audience to "be ready when your two minutes comes." Everyone who perseveres will have the opportunity someday to shine in a standard two-minute audition, but they must be prepared and in the right frame of mind to make success out of it.

Like the Boy Scouts say, "always be prepared."