Jeff Daniels Staring Down Fame

“I just think of myself as a hired hand,” says Jeff Daniels, a small-town boy who’s as determined to hang on to his simple Midwestern values as he is to have a successful film career.

Reluctant though he may be, it looks as if Daniels--who director Woody Allen says could be the next Cary Grant--is about to be yanked into the spotlight.

After highly regarded performances in Allen’s “The Purple Rose of Cairo” and the 1987 cult favorite “Something Wild,” Daniels, 33, has feature roles in four films premiering this year.

He stars opposite Kelly McGillis in the 1950s political thriller “The House on Carroll Street,” opening today. He’s in Los Angeles through April shooting “Checking Out,” a new film by David Leland, director of “Wish You Were Here,” one of the unexpected delights of 1987. And this fall, Daniels will be seen in a Robert Altman made-for-TV movie plus co-starring in a feature with “Miami Vice’s” Don Johnson.

“I don’t feel like a leading man yet,” Daniels said recently. “But I think ‘Checking Out’ might put me over the top. David rewrote the part with me in mind, and it’s perfect for me.”

Daniels came to public attention in 1983 playing Debra Winger’s philandering husband in “Terms of Endearment.” He lives in Chelsea, Mich., a town of 4,000 an hour outside Detroit. “If living there costs me a career, I don’t care.”

A devoted husband and father of two, Daniels is obsessed with baseball, likes beer and fishing, and regards fame with considerable trepidation.

“I don’t trust fame,” he said. “The way the media are--and this is particularly true of television--you’re nothing more than the flavor of the month.”

Visibly exhausted by his 14-hour shooting days, Daniels ruminated on one of the more pressing challenges he faces: As his career advances by leaps and bounds, will he be able to keep leading a normal life in the outback of Michigan?

“Yeah, I’m maintaining a normal life up here in Bel-Air.” He laughed sardonically. “My career doesn’t seem to be suffering from my living in Michigan, but there may come a time when I lose jobs because I’m not in L.A. But ‘normal’ isn’t just about where I live--it’s about values.

“I’m confident I’ll be able to hold onto the values I was raised with, but it won’t be easy, because the higher up you get in this business the bigger the crowd gets of people who want to dance around you. You have to tell them to leave you alone or you risk becoming completely overtaken by the peripheral stuff.”

Born in Georgia and raised in Michigan, Daniels was the eldest of three children in what he says was “not a particularly bohemian family. I wasn’t obsessed with movies when I was a kid. I enjoyed them, though, and performed in musicals when I was growing up. The town I lived in was so small that most kids participated in everything--you know, were on all the teams, performed in the town plays and so forth.

“For some reason, I could get up in front of 600 people and not be nervous, but I didn’t seriously consider a career in acting until I was in college and saw ‘Dog Day Afternoon.’ I saw that film repeatedly and slowly began to understand what Pacino was doing--that there’s more to acting than reciting the lines and singing a song.”

Daniels reached a turning point in 1976 when stage director Marshall Mason (recently named guest artistic director of the Ahmanson Theatre) spotted him in a college production of “Summer and Smoke” and invited him to New York to join the Circle Repertory Company. Just 21 at the time, Daniels relocated to New York where he toughed out nine years of dues paying.

“Sticking it out in New York was the toughest thing I’ve ever done,” Daniels said. “I wanted to leave the minute I got there and had one foot in Michigan the whole time I was there. I stayed because I knew if I walked away I’d never go back and try it again.”

A critically acclaimed performance in a 1980 production of Lanford Wilson’s “Fifth of July” led to Daniels landing a small part in the 1981 film “Ragtime.” His movie stock has continued to rise since then and has led to roles with Meryl Streep in “Heartburn” and Sissy Spacek in “Marie.” His performance in “Terms of Endearment,” however, made the biggest impression on the public.

“For years people have been coming up to me and saying, ‘You were Flap, right? God, I hated your guts,’ ” Daniels said.

Daniels’ image as a faithless fop could take on added dimension this year. He co-stars with Brad Davis, Eric Boogosian and Kevin O’Connor in a made-for-TV movie of “The Caine Mutiny” directed by Robert Altman, and he co-stars with Don Johnson in “Sweetheart’s Dance,” a film he describes as “a male bonding story.”

Both films are to be seen this fall, and while audiences are digesting them, Daniels will be in Pennsylvania shooting a Bud Yorkin comedy called “Love Hurts.” Add to this daunting itinerary a recent cover of GQ Magazine depicting a debonair Daniels dressed to the nines and touting him as “The next Cary Grant.”

“The Cary Grant thing was a quote from Woody Allen, who made the comment because he feels I’m good at sophisticated comedy,” Daniels said. “I don’t pretend to be suave like Cary Grant, and when I first saw that cover I thought, ‘Oh, no.’ Then I decided it was better than being hailed as the next Pee-wee Herman.”

With Daniels becoming an ever bigger fish in a big pond, he’s a huge fish in the small pond where he lives in Michigan.

“I’m definitely their favorite son,” he said. “They’re very proud and get quite upset when something goes wrong or I don’t get nominated for the fourth time. Naturally, I feel pressure as far as not wanting to let them down so I try not to get caught speeding.

“But I’m still in the tavern drinking and hanging out and trying to carry on like a normal person. None of my friends in Michigan are actors, and some of them tell me I’m a jerk when I’m a jerk. And that’s good.”