Jeff Daniels Revisits Hard Truths about 9/11 in The Looming Tower

Vanity Vair
By: Nicole Sperling
February 28, 2018

John O’Neill had a life even fiction writers wouldn’t believe. He was a hard-charging New York City cop who eventually rose through the ranks of the F.B.I. to head the city’s counter-intelligence unit, only to see his 25-year career abruptly come to a close a month before 9/11. The gregarious lead investigator of Osama bin Laden had a penchant for women, scotch, and French Impressionism; he was forced out of the F.B.I. and took a job as the chief of security at the World Trade Center. Soon thereafter, he would perish in the terrorist attacks at age 49.

O’Neill was a key figure in Lawrence Wright’s 2006 Pulitzer-prize winning book The Looming Tower. And he is the centerpiece of Hulu’s upcoming limited series based on the book, with Emmy-winner Jeff Daniels in the role.

“When you find out who John O’Neill was and what he was trying to do and what happened to him, your jaw drops. It’s not believable,” said Daniels, in a recent interview with Vanity Fair ahead of the series debut on February 28. “I hadn’t done this kind of guy. There’s something brilliant about him, righteous about him, and . . . there’s something wrong with him.”

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