YouSaid · the spoken record

Jeff Daniels

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76

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2020-09-24

most recent

2020-09-24

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1

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Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

1. “You put your faith in people, and then they disappoint you. And are you supposed to throw them under the bus? I guess so. I guess that's what we're supposed to do with people. But it's hard to let go of someone who changed your life and had such belief in you at a time when that's all he was, the great American filmmaker, and you're just an actor trying to survive in a business where you're not supposed to.”

   2020-09-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 406 — Jeff Daniels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “Still, do I can't delete that? That's the Woody Allen I knew. I didn't know about anything else I was with him, he and Mia Farrell were in love. You could see it offset. I mean, it was just, they loved, adored each other. That's what he Allen I know, the great writer of the short stories and all that. I feel like there are, you know, Matt Lauer was a friend. What am I supposed to do with that? You know, you get on the Today's show with Willie Geist and he hits you with that. Would you work with the Woody Allen again? I don't know. Would you work with Matt Lauer again? It's like we're collateral damage for other people's horrible, horrendous baggage. I don't know what to do with it, to be honest. I feel like...”

   2020-09-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 406 — Jeff Daniels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “I may not be a star, but I know I'm going to be able to work in this business for as long as I, for maybe decades because I'm good enough for Woody Allen in 1985. I mean, not even a year later I'm sitting in Mike Nichols' living room and he's meeting with me on Heartburn, the movie he's going to do with Merrill and eventually Jack Nicholson. And I finally said to Mike, I said, would you like me to read a scene or something? He goes, you're good enough for Woody Allen, you're good enough for me.”

   2020-09-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 406 — Jeff Daniels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “Was a story structure in there. Woody knows how to do that, but it was just Woody Allen would write that or shoot that way. It's the same thing with any piece of art or song or only Lyle Lovett would write that line. Only John Pryne would do that verse that way. You'd go, that's John Pryne. And that was Woody at the time. And now I get not one, but two roles in a Woody Allen movie. And what it did was, and it happened right after that, was if I'm good enough for Woody Allen, I'm good enough for anybody. That was when I said to myself after that movie,”

   2020-09-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 406 — Jeff Daniels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

5. “Yeah, it changed my life. When Woody Allen cast me in that movie, my life changed. I was suddenly... I was good enough for Woody Allen. And at the time, Woody was one of the premier, if not premier, American filmmakers in 1985. And for an actor to be in a Woody Allen movie was like being in a Lanford Wilson play for an off-Broadway actor. It was gold.”

   2020-09-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 406 — Jeff Daniels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

6. “And because of that incident, the Toledo train station at 6 in the morning, that triggered an idea for a play called Guest Artist where I wrote about a playwright from New York, hadn't written in years, Pulitzer Prize winner, being picked up by an apprentice. In a bus station and they never leave the bus station because he hasn't written a word and here's the check. And it goes, it's a pretty good examination of the arts in America, certainly in the middle of America. Then we made a film, we just made a film of it later, which came out this summer on video. And one of the independent films where we used, I was in it, Tim Busfield directed it, and we used all the people, the other people in it are from the purple rose.”

   2020-09-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 406 — Jeff Daniels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

7. “And he leaned over in the middle of the first act of Hodel and he goes, do you think they have any idea what it is they're seeing? And I said some of them do. The trick is to get the rest of them to see it too. And that's the mission He went back home, he wrote a play that ended up doing really well, not only for us, but for him. It went to the Humana Festival in Louisville and won that year's best new play west of the Hudson River or whatever the hell the thing is. And then he wrote another one called Rain Dance. And by the time he was writing Rain Dance with us, he had quit drinking. And was on his way back and then died of heart failure, I believe. But he came back. And as a person, as a human being, as a playwright.”

   2020-09-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 406 — Jeff Daniels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

8. “That by the end of his life and after he had written two plays for us, he went ahead and wrote them. It was tough because when we commissioned him, he didn't write a word for six months. And it was one of those, do you have a draft? Anything we can look at? And he goes, I haven't written a word in six months. Do you want the money back? No, get on the train again. Come out here. We're going to put up Hottel Baltimore. We'll put up that play. I'll direct it. I want you to show you us doing you. And if after that you can't do it, no problem. But at least look. And he came out and he looked at it. And, you know, Chelsea, Michigan is not the center of the arts world by any stretch. You're bringing professional theater to them.”

   2020-09-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 406 — Jeff Daniels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

9. “Yeah, guest artist was the play I wrote after an incident where I had gone to Lanford before that and said, look, our Purple Rose Cedar Company in Chelsea, Michigan, we're eight years old. I think I've got about 15 to 20 actors that are ready to handle a play that you would write. Well, that's very nice of you, but I haven't written in 10 years and I've already written my great play. I'm done. Thank you very much. Okay, here's some money. I know you need money. Come on out and let's just talk about it. Okay. And he got on a train. He wouldn't fly. He got on a train and it landed in Toledo at six in the morning. And there I was. Meeting him on the platform. I don't think he was drunk. He was drinking at that time, but he did stumble off the train.”

   2020-09-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 406 — Jeff Daniels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

10. “And he was an important part of my life until he passed away a few years ago, a very important part. He was always a true American artist, as is Marshall. But I just gravitated to the writing, not the directing. I never wanted to direct. I don't care about directing. But I do care about writing. And I wanted to learn how to be really good at it like he was. And I've spent my life trying to do that.”

    2020-09-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 406 — Jeff Daniels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

11. “And I'll never forget it. And I would be in his plays and I would go as an actor, you'd get the first draft, you get the reading draft, which was hardly legible. Then the second and the third and the fourth. Now you're into previews. Now you're into opening night. And by then, the writing process I learned by being an actor in Lanford Wilson's plays. And then I would sit with him and just... I hung on every word he would say. I'm going to cut that. Why? Why? Because I hate it or because it doesn't work. You're taking notes”

    2020-09-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 406 — Jeff Daniels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

12. “Huge mentor. I went to New York in 1976. I was 21 years old. I became an apprentice that September 76, and I walked into the Circle rep offices, having previously in the spring played in one of those plays that Marshall directed was Haudel Baltimore, written by Lanford Wilson. I love that play. And now four months later, I'm walking into the office of Circle Rep for the first time, and there's Lanford Wilson splayed out in a chair. And I'm going, it was the first star I ever met. I was tongue tied and I said, Mr. Wilson, I'm Jeff Daniels. I'm one of the new apprentices. Oh, hey, Dal, how are you? What are you working on anything or what are you doing? Oh, I'm trying to fix a second act.”

    2020-09-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 406 — Jeff Daniels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

13. “Well, yeah, but it was never. So that the success of it was always just am I getting better at what I'm doing? Is the craft of it better? Because, and I can remember telling people the most boring part of a play for me that I just can't connect to is the curtain cold. didn't care about it. I didn't, I wanted the curtain to come down and send us all home. I know the audience is thanking us for doing what we did. I get it, but that walking to the front of the stage and being my God, you love me, you love me. Yeah.”

    2020-09-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 406 — Jeff Daniels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

14. “Yeah, I didn't have that. I was really, really good at something. Needed to go to New York to learn how to do it professionally and do it better, learn the fundamentals, the techniques, all that stuff. But I was really good at this. So you need to go chase that. This was never about, I've always wanted to be an actor. I've always wanted to be a star. I've needed attention. I was just really good at something. And I was just going to chase it until it blew up and went away. And that's why it was never about, and that's why one of the reasons I came home.”

    2020-09-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 406 — Jeff Daniels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

15. “and thinking he was the funniest person I'd ever seen in my life that even that first place South Pacific there wasn't any stage fright being on stage in front of people was a second home it was the most natural thing in the world for me and and that's what the teachers saw she saw this kid has a gene for being unafraid of being in front of the public and that that was key”

    2020-09-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 406 — Jeff Daniels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

16. “My mother was strong and silent and tough farmer, a farmer. She grew up on a farm. My dad was the life of the party. One of my earliest memories is seeing a Kiwanis pageant or the Kiwanis members put on a big, you know, everybody gets to laugh. And my dad was in a pink ballerina outfit. Swan Lake, wearing high top black converse tennis shoes, and he would swan lake his way in that ballerin outfit across the stage. 700 people went, I remember being like five or six and seeing that.”

    2020-09-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 406 — Jeff Daniels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

17. “Yeah, which is part of the whole Norman Rockwell thing. It's just like. Toughen up. You're from the Midwest. You're not from Yale. You're not from the coast. You're not from LA. You didn't go to the big school. You went to Central Michigan University for three years. Then you dropped out. Toughen up. want this you're good enough go”

    2020-09-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 406 — Jeff Daniels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

18. “Up there, 10th floor. Son of Sam is walking around in 1977. You got the blackout. And I said, you know what? I'm okay not doing this. I don't need to do this. My dad listened. Know, and he's got the lumber yard in the back of his mind. And then he said, Marjorie, what are you thinking? And she said, find a way to stay and hung up.”

    2020-09-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 406 — Jeff Daniels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

19. “First year I was in a one room apartment on 23rd and 7th Avenue, the two-way, the big 23rd streets, where all the trucks, the flatbed trucks.”

    2020-09-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 406 — Jeff Daniels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

20. “Going to work your ass off, but you're going to take the classes and you'll learn how to be an actor. No promises, no obligation, but here's a door in. And so I quit college after my junior year and went to New York and joined the Circle Repertory Company with my father and mother's blessing.”

    2020-09-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 406 — Jeff Daniels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

21. “And when I got a break to I went to Central Michigan University three years, was doing plays, succeeding there, saw an ad for an audition for a bunch of kids for a rep festival at Eastern Michigan University, went down there auditioned that's going to go to the Detroit Red Wing game that night, get drunk with my college buddies. And one of the directors was from New York. He was Marshall W. Mason from the Circle Repertory Company out there picking up a check from the head of the drama department at Eastern Michigan University, Jim Gussup. They went to school together at Northwestern. Come on out, pick up a check, direct some college kids, go back to your off-Broadway theater in New York, Marshall did that, and when he did that, he found me. And he said, you should come to New York, become an apprentice.”

    2020-09-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 406 — Jeff Daniels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

22. “All in summer high school musicals, and then every summer, she would do a summer musical, and then she'd get these six to eight kids who had an affinity for this, who could be in front of people, who could sing, who could dance, who knew how to bump bump with a joke. That just comes from timing. You either have timing or you don't. I had it. I knew what to do in front of 700 people on a hot July night to make them laugh all at once. I just knew how to do that. So my parents. Saw that. And I can remember My dad Talking about what you did that night, you know, Tevya or Fagan. So supportive And we just go over it like after a football game, you know, each play, each song, that thing you did, that joke really landed tonight didn't work as much before. Why was it? I don't know. I don't either. Let's figure it out.”

    2020-09-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 406 — Jeff Daniels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

23. “And I just started doing this dance where I would like hop back and forth and my knees would go up and I'd bang my knees, alter back and forth, back and forth. She had me do it three times. She put me in the musical, in the play. I had two lines. And then I skipped the next year, which was a mistake. I kicked myself. And then as a senior, she had me playan and Oliver, followed by Tevia and Fiddler on the roof, 18 Midwestern, not a clue as to what Jewish was, but I saw Toppel do the movie six times. So I stole everything from him. And then Harold Hill and Music Man and El Gallo and Fantastics in Oklahoma was Judd Fry and Cornelius Hacko. She gave me opportunities”

    2020-09-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 406 — Jeff Daniels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

24. “She went to my parents and said, I don't know what's going on here, but you should pay attention to this. And that's sixth grade. So, seventh grade, eighth grade, freshman in high school. I get into high school and the same teacher is now doing the high school musicals. And I was walking out of basketball practice after a three-hour basketball practice where all we did was run because we weren't good. And I'm walking past the auditorium and she was waiting for me as a sophomore. She said, get in here. Oh, God. South Pacific, I need sailors. And again, small town, anyone who can carry a tomb is considered good enough to be in this musical. And she put me on stage. And I remember just do a dance to, there ain't nothing like a dame, which I think was the song there”

    2020-09-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 406 — Jeff Daniels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

25. “Well, what happened was a teacher in the sixth grade saw something. She was a choir teacher. Her name was Diane Elroy. And on a Friday afternoon, her sixth grade choir class, she just kind of pitched the lesson plan. It was bored and said, let's do skits. She didn't even know what improv was. Let's do skits. And she got me up to do you're a politician. giving a speech and your pants are falling down go ahead and I can remember standing there and being in front of 30 kids and and starting slowly whatever a sixth grade or thinks a political speech was I started saying it out loud and then she and then I would tug at the bell and then tug at the side by the end Of three or four minutes, I was clinging to my pants like they had 100 pound weights on them. The class was hysterical.”

    2020-09-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 406 — Jeff Daniels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

26. “Yes, Norman Rockwell has been described, what Chelsea was at one time, the two stoplights, you know, predominantly white small town, raised in a Republican. household. My father ran a lumber company in town. He ended up being the president of the school board. He's the head of the Methodist Church. He was the mayor. He was revered. And I was the oldest son. And I was supposed to take over the lumber company.”

    2020-09-24 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 406 — Jeff Daniels · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source