Actor Jeff Daniels shows he’s as adept with a guitar and a song as he is on stage and screen

The Daily Times
By: Steve Wildsmith
May 13, 2015

Without a doubt, there’s a certain curiosity factor that comes with going to see Jeff Daniels play music.

Yes, he acknowledges, a good portion of the crowd — perhaps as much as 50 percent of those in attendance — has no idea whether he can sing or not, but his star power has brought them anyway. He recognizes that, he told The Daily Times during a recent interview, and he’s learned to use it to his advantage.

“Definitely every time I walk out there, there are a lot of people who just want to see the guy from ‘The Newsroom’ or ‘Dumb and Dumber,’ but after 10 minutes, they realize they’ve seen me and that I’m going to continue to play and sing,” Daniels said, who will perform Tuesday night at The Bijou Theatre in downtown Knoxville. “What I’ve learned to do is play into it and use it. I mean, if William Shatner can do it, I can too, so I treat it like what it is: There’s an elephant in the room, so let’s deal with it. It’s dealing with the obvious, but it makes me probably better than I am, because the expectations are so low based on vanity project from other actors over the decades.

“But when you can play and when you can write and when you can arrange, now it’s a show. And when you find yourself laughing harder than you have in a long time, and then here comes one that’s gonna make you cry, you realize it’s a real show. It’s not just singing.”

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