Jeff Daniels
Jeffrey Warren "Jeff" Daniels is an American actor, musician and playwright. He founded a non-profit theatre company, the Purple Rose Theatre Company, in his home state of Michigan. He has performed in a number of stage productions, both on and off-Broadway. He has been nominated for the Tony Award as Best Actor for the Broadway play God of Carnage, along with his other three cast-mates. He has had a thriving film career, from his debut in 1981 in Ragtime, through State of Play in 2009. For his film work, he has received three Golden Globe Award nominations, including as Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy/Musical for Woody Allen's The Purple Rose of Cairo (hence the name of his theatre company).
Jeff was born in Athens, Georgia and grew up in Chelsea, Michigan, where his father, Robert Lee Daniels, still owns the local lumber yard. Jeff attended Central Michigan University and participated in their theater program. In the Summer of 1976 he attended the Eastern Michigan University (EMU) drama school to participate in a special Bi-Centenniel Repertory programme where he performed in Hot L Baltimore and three other plays performed in repertoire. Marshall Mason was the guest director at EMU and he invited Jeff to come to New York to work at the Circle Repertory Theatre where he performed in The Fifth of July by Lanford Wilson in the 1977-1978 season. He also performed in New York in The Shortchanged Review (1979) at Second Stage Theatre. It was the first show of the inaugural season for Second Stage Theatre.
Jeff has starred in a number of New York productions, on and off Broadway. On Broadway, he has appeared in Lanford Wilson's Redwood Curtain, A. R. Gurney's The Golden Age and Wilson's Fifth of July, for which he won a Drama Desk Award for Best Supporting Actor. Off-Broadway, he received a Drama Desk nomination for Wilson's Lemon Sky, and an Obie Award for his performance in the Circle Repertory Company production of Johnny Got His Gun. He returned to the stage in 2009, appearing in Broadway's God of Carnage with Marcia Gay Harden, Hope Davis and James Gandolfini.
In 1991, he founded the regionally-acclaimed Purple Rose Theatre Company, a non-profit stage company in his childhood and current home of Chelsea, Michigan. He is currently Executive Director of PRTC, and has written 11 plays for them.
Although primarily a dramatic actor, Jeff has also been cast in other genres such as the 2002 suspense thriller Blood Work and in the 1994 comedy Dumb and Dumber as Harry Dunne, Lloyd Christmas' best friend. Daniels portrayed Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain in Gettysburg, as well as the prequel Gods and Generals.
Most notably, Jeff is also known for his roles in movies such as Speed, Terms of Endearment, My Favorite Martian, Gettysburg, Arachnophobia, Because of Winn-Dixie, and The Squid and the Whale. More recently, he appeared in the movie RV with Robin Williams, as well as State of Play and Paper Man. He continues to act and will appear in more upcoming movies.
Jeff has been married to his high school sweetheart, Kathleen Rosemary Treado, since 1979. Their first child was born in 1984, and in 1986, Jeff moved his home to Chelsea, Michigan, where the couple had grown up. They now have three children: Benjamin (born 1984), Lucas (born 1987), and Nellie (born 1990).
Let's pray that God will do a mighty work in Jeff's life to draw him into a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ for eternity!