SMART AND SMARTER
IF YOU TAKE A MINUTE TO THINK ABOUT IT, FEW ACTORS OVER THE PAST TWO DECADES HAVE GIVEN AS MANY IMPRESSIVE PERFORMANCES AS JEFF DANIELS; NOW, IN THE SQUID AND THE WHALE, HE HAS DONE HIS BEST WORK YET
By Scott Feinberg
Jeff Daniels’ performance in the critically-acclaimed indie hit The Squid and the Whale has earned him the best reviews of his career and may yet earn him the first Oscar nomination of his distinguished twenty-five year career. In the film, Daniels, who is now fifty years old, plays Professor Bernard Berkman, husband of Laura Linney’s Joan and father of Jesse Eisenberg’s Walt and Owen Kline’s Frank. Bernard is a writer whose career is in a huge rut while his wife’s is only just beginning to take off. His bitterness and self-absorption push his wife away and into extra-marital relationships, inevitably resulting in a painful divorce. The film focuses on the impact of the family’s disintegration on the two young children, and the lack thereof on despicable Bernard. Time critic Richard Corliss has written, “As the underloved novelist, Daniels has created his masterpiece.” I had the opportunity to ask Daniels whether or not he agreed in an exclusive interview just days after the performance brought him his third career Golden Globe nomination.
“I think, from beginning to end, it’s the best thing I’ve done,” Daniels says. “I think there are certain sections of other movies—scenes in Purple Rose of Cairo, the Little Roundtop sequence in Gettysburg, and, you know, even some of the comic sequences in Dumb and Dumber… But, from beginning to end, it’s the best thing I’ve done.” If it sounds like Daniels is boasting, he’s not. Rarely have I encountered a humbler, more mind-mannered actor. Daniels was born in Atlanta, Georgia, but for decades has called Michigan home. He never really wanted any part of Hollywood. (He jokes that he doesn’t want his kids to go Easter egg hunting at Sly Stallone’s house.) He “came up through New York and off-Broadway at the Circle Repertoire Company” in the late seventies and early eighties before making his big screen debut in Ragtime, a 1981 film that allowed him to watch legends like Pat O’Brien, Donald O’Connor, and James Cagney at work. Though he had only “two or three” scenes in Ragtime, Daniels’ star clearly was on the rise, and he was cast as Debra Winger’s husband and Shirley MacLaine’s son-in-law in the 1983 Best Picture winner Terms of Endearment. It was the first less than likable character he has played, but far from the last.
In 1985, Daniels starred in Woody Allen’s fantasy The Purple Rose of Cairo, playing both movie star Tom Baxter, who literally walks off the screen in-character, as well as Gil Shepherd, the human actor who wants his fictional creation to go back ‘into’ the screen before it ruins his career. This remains one of Daniels’ favorite films. He says, “Halfway through The Purple Rose of Cairo, Woody Allen told me I was good. And for a young actor who is wondering whether he’ll make a career of this, when someone like Woody Allen tells you you’re good—it was a turning point for me. And I remember going back to the apartment thinking, ‘I know I’m going to be able to make a living in this business. You know, if I’m good enough for Woody, I’m good enough for everybody.’ And that was just a huge turning point for me, just psychologically.”
The Purple Rose of Cairo brought Daniels his first Golden Globe nomination for Best Actor and widespread speculation that he would also be nominated for an Academy Award. He was not, but his career continued to soar, nonetheless. The following year, he starred in the quirky comedy Something Wild, playing a simple business taken on a wild ride by Melanie Griffith. But, at a time when most expected Daniels to cash in on his good looks and large paychecks to become a full-fledged star, he and his wife made a life-changing decision. “We wanted to raise the kids in Michigan… Kathleen and I were both from Michigan. It was familiar and, most importantly, it was what we considered to be home. So that’s where we went. And after, you know, half a dozen movies that was the choice we made. I mean, I knew then it would cost me money, it would cost me roles, and—but it was family first, career second, and we just stuck to that. And what that meant was that I was going to be more of an actor and less of a star. And, to be honest, I was trained to be an actor. I wasn’t trained to be a star.”
In the years since, Daniels has joined a select group of actors who are regularly cast in important roles despite living outside of California or New York. While he may not have become the huge box-office star some once expected, he is one of the most respected actors in the business, having made strong impressions in big studio films and indie hits alike, including Gettysburg (1993), Speed (1994), Dumb and Dumber (1994), Fly Away Home (1996), 101 Dalmatians (1996), Pleasantville (1998), Blood Work (2002), The Hours (2002), and this year’s Good Night, and Good Luck.
Last year, Daniels came across a script from young writer Noah Baumbach, who is best known for co-writing last year’s quirky The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou with Wes Anderson. Immediately, Daniels says, he “chased” after the part, because he “knew that they were having trouble casting the male lead. There was some reluctance from a couple of guys, which is kind of standard operating procedure for me. It’s usually in somebody else’s hands and I gotta kind of swoop in… I was shooting Because of Winn-Dixie in Louisiana and I flew to New York and met with Noah.” Daniels remembers observing of the script, “Amidst all the pain and tragedy of this screenplay, there is a lot of comedy… This is very funny.” Baumbach appreciated that, telling him he was the first person to read the script that way. Daniels was cast shortly thereafter.
Despite the film’s miniscule budget and lack of a distributor at the time, Daniels was delighted to be cast. With pleasure, he grew a beard for and wore 1980s clothing during the “intense” twenty-three day shoot. “It was such a great role. It was so tricky. I mean, there’s failure written all over that thing—you know, you can play him too much as a monster, or you can try to reach for sympathy… We just settled on playing, you know, Bernard is who Bernard is. And right or wrong, good or bad, he thinks he’s doing the right thing. And you just stick to that. And there’s just this guy who probably is a brilliant writer who is underappreciated, but as a father and a husband, he’s this kind of abysmal failure and, to be honest, he’s oblivious to it. And, so, it was fun to play. And also, not once did we ever sit down and go, ‘By the way, can we make him sympathetic and likable?’ We never had that conversation. And yet, I think what the success of the performance and the movie, I guess, is, is that, in part, you do feel for the guy and you do understand that there’s some pain underneath his actions. And, if only—you know, you wonder how much of it he’s aware of and how much of it he isn’t.”
Daniels’ character, Bernard, was partly based on Noah Baumbach’s father, the writer and professor Jonathan Baumbach. “I was actually wearing some of Jonathan’s clothes, which I think Jonathan has had since the eighties,” Daniels remarks. He emphasizes “there is a lot of fiction in the movie, to be very fair to Jonathan.” Noah Baumbach wrote the part of Bernard “with his father’s voice and the cadence and the kind of musicality of the way his father speaks. And so when I went and met with him, you could hear that. And suddenly the script—you could hear the cadence in the script. There were certain mannerisms and attitudes about writing that he’s got. I mean, he teaches writing. And I was able to kind of, you know, take that and put it into the movie. I know a few other writers, and I also have written myself, so that was kind of the end of Jonathan in me and what I took from him. And then I kinda had to find a way to make it true to me.”
Interestingly, Daniels says two elements of his own life, in particular, proved useful for his characterization of Bernard. Fifteen years ago, Daniels built The Purple Rose Theater (named after the film) out in Michigan. Daniels, who directs and writes plays and songs for the professional company, explains, “We really focus on doing new American plays and, you know, taking playwrights and producing their work… It’s been a wonderful labor of love for me.” He adds, “Because I’m a playwright, I know what the writer’s mind is. I know that you can become locked into your own head, and so absorbed in what you’re writing that the next thing you know you’re self-absorbed. And Bernard can’t make that distinction.”
Also, Daniels says, “Bernard is—and I think Jonathan is, in a lot of ways—underappreciated as a writer. And, you know, again—I moved back to Michigan, so I’m very aware of where I am in the, you know, scheme of Hollywood and all of that, the pecking order… So there’s an under-appreciation factor that kind of comes with what I do. It’s not a huge deal, but it’s there. And so, for me, I just took that part of me and just kind of poured gasoline on it and lit it. And that’s how Bernard feels. I mean, Bernard just rages at how underappreciated he is… ‘Sad’ is the word I keep going back to with Bernard. There’s a sadness there.”
Daniels, asked how Jonathan Baumbach responded to the naked portrait of him that had been painted by his own son, says, “He understands that you write strengths and weaknesses in order to have a balanced character. And, again, some of it was based on Jonathan and some of it never happened… I was there in New York at the New York premiere when he saw it. And, you know, he put his arm around Noah and said, “I’m very proud of you.” It takes a lot. That took a lot for Jonathan to do that. You know, whatever their deal is is their deal. But, when he saw it, he was proud that Noah had written such an honest portrayal of a family.”
A recurrent theme throughout Daniels’ career has been his unparalleled ability to work with young people and animals. In The Squid and the Whale, he worked with Jesse Eisenberg, who plays his sixteen year old son (but is really twenty-two) and Owen Kline, actor Kevin’s son, who plays his twelve year old son (though he is really fourteen). Daniels says, “Laura and I worked really hard to kind of have the feeling that the four of us were a unit. Four actors all equal off camera. And we just, we made sure that whenever we were with those two guys that they felt comfortable around us. You know, they were both professionals—they worked very hard, and they always showed up on time, and they knew their lines. That was wonderful. And that made it easy to kind of become a four-person, you know, unit. And, then, what happens is then you get in front of the camera, and that unit of four actors now turns into a family. And it’s just a little kind of psychological transference so that they’re comfortable with us. And it shows on camera. You know, they call it N.A.R.—No Acting Required. And the more you can do that with kids, or younger actors, the better. That’s kind of what I learned doing Fly Away Home and various other movies. You really want it so that when the kid looks at you, they trust you. That’s important.”
All of the actors in the film, regardless of age, develop their characters to the extent that they really seem real, and I know that I was not alone in wondering what became of them after the credits rolled. Daniels, asked for his take, responds, “Well, I love the ending because the audience then walks out talking about it. And it’s open to interpretation. I think if they really look at those last shots of Jesse in front of ‘The Squid and the Whale,’ I think they’ll see a guy that’s gonna be okay. They don’t know what he’s going to do, where he’s gonna go. But he’s gonna be okay… You know, we don’t put a lot of ribbons around things at the end. We don’t resolve everything. But I think you walk away with the feeling that Jesse—Walt—thinks, ‘You know what, I’m gonna be okay.’ He can stand in front of an exhibit that scared the hell out of him, much like he no longer is scared by the divorce and the family and all of that. He’s gotta move on.”
Inevitably, our conversation turned to the awards season, and what an Oscar nomination would mean to Daniels, who was refreshingly honest in his response. “Things like, you know, the Oscar nomination—it means a lot more now than it would have, perhaps, back, you know, when I was in my twenties or thirties. I just, I appreciate the attention. Like every career, in anyone’s career there are good years and not-so-good years. And when it’s good, you need to enjoy it. And the credibility that comes with a nomination, you know, it does mean a lot. And it would mean a lot. Certainly, now that I’m in my fifties, I’m appreciating every moment of this, you know, for as long as it lasts. You know, I look at the Oscars as a celebration of a lot of great work. And, you know, it’s less a competition and more of a celebration. And I’m just glad to be—up to this point—invited to the party.”
I also tested Daniels with a question I’ve asked other nominees with whom I’ve spoken: Who, of his sex but not from his film, gave the best performance he had seen this year? I chuckled to myself, because Daniels stumbled on this one: “Um… I haven’t gone through all the movies yet. Oh, man. I was gonna say [TV actor] Ricky Gervais, Extras. Um… You know who I really like? Well… no, I shouldn’t say that…” I am fairly confident he wanted to say his Good Night, and Good Luck co-star David Strathairn, or Eric Bana, Russell Crowe, or Terrence Howard. But he realized that advocating for one of them might hurt his own chances for a nomination—at the moment, he is widely perceived to be among that group competing for the spots not filled by Philip Seymour Hoffman, Joaquin Phoenix, and Heath Ledger, the presumptive locks in the category. Daniels recovered nicely and said, “Oh, I like—I really like what George Clooney did in Syriana.” Clooney is competing in the supporting category.
Before ending our discussion, I pressed Daniels for an answer on who in the industry he most respects and who he would most like to work with—I felt his answer, as a Hollywood outsider, might speak volumes. Without a moment’s hesitation, he cited Clint Eastwood as the person he most respected. (He recently released an album with a song called “Dirty Harry Blues” dedicated to his Blood Work director.) As for who he’d most like to work with, he cited the late comedian Peter Sellers. Daniels strongly defended comedy as an art form equal to drama or tragedy, though he fears many critics and voters do not share his view. He thought for a moment and added, “I would love to have been directed by Preston Sturges.” It struck me as a good pairing, and I mentioned he would have been great in a Sturges movie like Sullivan’s Travels (1941), in which a comedy director (Joel McCrea) wants to make ‘important’ films about social problems, only to conclude after many trials and travails that comedy serves a great purpose, after all. “Oh my God, I would have loved to have been part of just one those movies,” Daniels responds.
Whether or not one agrees with Daniels that there is anything funny about The Squid and the Whale, few disagree that it is a spectacular film. It has received a 95% favorable rating on rottentomatoes.com, and for a film that had no distributor when it was made, it has done very well commercially for Samuel Goldwyn Films, which bought it after the Sundance Film Festival. Daniels sums it up best: “The Squid and the Whale has been just a wonderful ride, and I’m getting phone calls from a lot of great people already. So I look forward to the next five to ten years. It’s nice to have a career that lasts decades. And it looks like I’m gonna grab another decade.” That… and perhaps his first Oscar nomination.
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