Jeff Daniels
Last Monday afternoon I did a brief phoner with the great Jeff Daniels while standing outside a neighborhood luncheonette on Madison and 81st. The idea was to pay tribute to his fine supporting performance in The Lookout, Scott Frank's midwestern bank-job drama. Daniels plays a guy named Lewis -- a lazy, bearded, low-rent, shoulder- shrugging, guitar-playing, middle-aged smartass -- with a dry, succinct wit that settles in and hits the spot. He's far and away the best thing in the film.
After last Tuesday's performance of Blackbird at the Manhattan Theatre Club -- Tuesday, 3.27.07, 9:20 pm
I'm not a huge fan of The Lookout (it has a few good things), but I really liked Daniels and I was trying to do Frank a small favor. But I waited until today to run this piece, and that makes me two days late and a dollar short. The Lookout opened and died this weekend with only $1,929,000 in the till and $2000 a print. Face it -- DVDs of The Lookout will be sitting in the Walmart bargain bin four or five months from now. It's a cold, cruel, fuck-you world out there.
Plus the interview, frankly, didn't go all that well. Daniels was in a cranky, almost bitter mood and preoccupied by the emotional load of playing a very difficult lead role in David Harrower's Blackbird, a play that was in previews at the Manhattan Theatre Club. His character, Ray, is a guy in his mid '50s who's done time for having had a brief affair with a 12 year-old girl named Una when he was 40. The play is about the girl, now 27 (and played by Allison Pill), visiting Ray and wanting to regurgitate and hash things over in more ways than one.
Playing the role, Daniels said, is harrowing, draining, bruising. I mentioned an actor friend who used to unwind from a difficult role by getting a shiatsu massage after each performance. Not in that realm, said Daniels. Getting into Ray makes him feel like he needs the services of a therapist.
Daniels in The Lookout
Is there some way we could meet before or after the play, I asked, so I could take a quick photo? I can't see doing that, Daniels said. Talk to the Lookout publicist. What if I stood outside with the autograph hounds after a Blackbird performance and snapped a shot when you come out...how would that be? Still don't see it, he replied. I might not come out right away, it depends what door I leave by, there might be notes, I don't like to do that stuff anyway.
Scott had spoken favorably to Daniels about me, which was why we were talking there and then. "I mean, I can't even believe I'm talking to you," he said at one point, meaning that he was whipped and disturbed and phoners like this were above and beyond the call. I wasn't offended, but I can't say I was charmed.
I tried some standard flattery (like mentioning how much I liked him as Chris Reeve's boyfriend in the 1981 B'way production of The Fifth of July), but that didn't help much. Daniels just said "thank you" a couple of times, and the conversation seemed to stop each time he said that, and I started to feel like a kiss-ass. It was basically a dud conversation all around.
So I called the publicist for Blackbird and asked for a couple of press comps. She obliged, and I saw Daniels do the hard thing last Tuesday night. Blackbird is a 95 minute one-acter, and pretty much a straight sprint. It holds you with a hard grip. And Daniels is damn impressive. Not touching, exactly, since he's playing a kind of monster, but it's a steady "wow, wow, wow" thing to watch him go to town. He should end up with some great reviews when the play opens on April 10.
Four people walked out, but that's to be expected, I guess, with a play about a pedophile and his victim. Except it's not that cut and dried.
Directed by Joe Mantello, Blackbird is about two people who are totally destroyed by the fact that they were genuinely in love (or something close to that), and who briefly and clumsily acted on it and have been paying for this criminal sin for 15 years and counting. It's also about dealing with guilt and trying to move on. It could also be about a serial molester who's never moved on at all.
This is Lolita territory, of course, which means that it's not just about an older guy having his way with a lamb in the woods (although it was certainly that in part). Ray's crime was loathsome, of course, but it's clear from listening to the 27 year-old Una that she had some pretty strong feelings at the time of the seduction that were nearly the equal of Ray's, and that putting this kind of relationship in a box and keeping it there isn't easy or simple.
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on April 1, 2007 at 12:22 PM
comment #1
Balthazar
says ...
OscarWatch.com has Joseph Gordon-Levitt listed as a Best Actor candidate from this film! The guy from Third Rock?!?!!?
Joel, am I tripping?
Posted by Balthazar
at April 1, 2007 4:57 PM
comment #2
tholl-yung
says ...
I got happy whenever Daniels was on screen and unhappy when he disappeared for a while (you know, the lovers get separated). Pelham123 made good in the box office thread. My eyes rolled over when I saw the t.v. spots, as in "you've got to be kidding."
Posted by tholl-yung
at April 1, 2007 5:06 PM
comment #3
EDouglas
says ...
You do realize that if this was last Monday afternoon, you were probably about 20 blocks from where Jeff Daniels was. Why didn't you just go down there and do the interview/photo in person?
Gordon-Levitt is really good in the movie but no way this is an Oscar contender.
Posted by EDouglas
at April 1, 2007 5:16 PM
comment #4
ScottC
says ...
Huh. Daniels was perfectly friendly at the junket roundtables that day.
Posted by ScottC
at April 1, 2007 6:15 PM
comment #5
Josh Massey
says ...
Balthazar: Yes, you're "tripping" if you're still referring to Gordon-Levitt as "the guy from 'Third Rock.'" He's done some damn impressive work since then.
Posted by Josh Massey
at April 1, 2007 7:46 PM
comment #6
thatmovieguy
says ...
I've interviewed Daniels four times and he's always been a lively conversationalist and a terrific storyteller. I can only guess that he was completely wiped out by the work. It sounds like a draining play, but I do hope to see it when I get to New York next month. And yes, he is superb in THE LOOKOUT.
Posted by thatmovieguy
at April 1, 2007 8:29 PM
comment #7
PanTheFaun
says ...
Maybe he just doesn't like your work?
Posted by PanTheFaun
at April 1, 2007 10:05 PM
comment #8
Tim
says ...
Balthazar: See "Brick." You won't think of Gordon-Levitt as "the guy from 3rd Rock" (or Demi Moore's son in "The Juror" for that matter) ever again.
Posted by Tim
at April 2, 2007 8:39 AM
comment #9
Balthazar
says ...
Good points, all, regarding my silly hangup over Third Rock.
I'm sure that if you told somebody in 1985 that that guy from Bosom Buddies would win a pair of Oscars and become one of the most respected actor/director/producers of his generation, people would say, "Yeah, I knew all along there was something special in that Peter Scolari!"
Posted by Balthazar
at April 2, 2007 9:41 AM
comment #10
DavidF
says ...
Is it me or is Jeff Daniels a terminally-underrated actor?
He isn't A-list enough to open a movie though he's been in plenty of huge movies. He's done everything from Dumb and Dumber or RV to The Squid and the Whale, Fly Away Home and Good Night and Good Luck.
He always seems really good. He never gets Oscar noms or anything ... but, he's a pretty talented fellow, eh?
At the risk of coming out of left field, Bill Paxton is kinda the same way. Sure, he'll always be "Hudson" from Aliens but he's been really solid in stuff like A Simple Plan and Apollo 13 too...
Posted by DavidF
at April 2, 2007 10:58 AM
comment #11
christian
says ...
i still have the GQ from 1986 (sic) when daniels was on the cover as "the next cary grant" (praise from woody allen)...
Posted by christian
at April 2, 2007 1:40 PM
comment #12
bipedalist
says ...
Right, Ed, well if I had a dime for every time someone told me so and so "wasn't an Oscar contender," well, I could retire a rich woman. No one knows jack shit. A lot of people told me early out that Ryan Gosling has zero chance of getting nommed too. I also had Crash up as a possible contender early in the year and everyone laughed at that too. The aim is not to predict who will be nominated but just to keep track of those who are getting buzz and generating talk. Keep in mind, Ed, that you also told me over and over again that The Departed would never win best pic.
A word about Jeff's column - I've done interviews with people who were pricks too but I don't know that it's an honorable thing to write so negatively about someone just because he wasn't nice to you. That's weird. All it means is that Daniels wasn't up to the usual anal licking some actors and directors have to do to web "personalities" in order to get SOME coverage, be it fringe or otherwise. Good for him for not sucking up.
Posted by bipedalist
at April 2, 2007 3:12 PM
comment #13
gruver1
says ...
Wells to Bipedalist: You "don't know that it's an honorable thing to write so negatively about someone just because he wasn't nice to you"? What's your philosophy then? Write only glowing or upbeat things no matter how the interview goes because it's more polite? That's a great journalistic attitude. And "so negatively," you say? I described the conversation as it happened. Daniels wasn't a prick -- he was just indifferent and disengaged, in part because the publicists probably told him that I wasn't a huge fan of the film. But he spoke to me, apparently, because I know and like Scott Frank, and Scott said I was an okay guy...or something like that. Verily I say unto you, o Bipedalist, that once you start going down the road of "oh, I have to keep this piece positive and mellow, no matter what the subject said or what vibe he/she exuded"...once you start doing that you are DEAD as a journalist.
Posted by gruver1
at April 4, 2007 8:39 AM
comment #14
bipedalist
says ...
I understand that you are a "columnist with an attitude." I get that. But what I don't get is a bitchy post about Jeff Daniels who didn't kiss your ass. It's about the work, not about ass-kissing, right? If it becomes one favor after another suddenly you're Roger Friedman - "be nice to me or I'll write something bad about you." It turns everyone into whores with a price. I for one would never want anyone to be nice to me just so I would write something nice about them.
If you didn't like the movie, you should have either written a straight interview or else taken a pass on the whole thing. My opinion.
Posted by bipedalist
at April 4, 2007 9:53 AM