Welcome to WEMU’s new segment about arts and culture that’s local, homegrown and right under your nose. It’s called “‘Round Every Corner.” I am Neda Ulaby. This week, a visit with the 8,000-pound gorilla of Chelsea, Michigan’s art scene, the impresario of Purple Rose Theatre Company and the new JDs Stage Bistro. JD, of course, for Jeff Daniels.
“I don’t have to care about Michigan actors. I don’t have to care about local musicians or regional musicians, but I do because I used to be one, still am in a way. I’ve always thought of myself as a working actor, not a star from Hollywood.”
It might be hard to believe, but Hollywood star Jeff Daniels built his theater in Chelsea, where he grew up, in part because he worried, always, that his hot streak on stage and screen would eventually come crashing down.
“We had a good run. I did three or four movies. Now, let’s wait for it to end. And when it’s over, I’ll be home.”
Right at the moment when he first made it big, he wanted to create a base for Michigan actors and playwrights and foster up-and-coming talent. But he says he and his wife, his high school sweetheart, were also guided by old-fashioned, Midwestern pragmatism when he first founded the Purple Rose Theatre in 1991.
“I don’t have to leave Los Angeles or move out of New York. I’ll already be home. I was very fatalistic about it.”
This career Jeff Daniels was so fatalistic about included three or four movies right off the bat that were total career makers. In the Woody Allen movie “The Purple Rose of Cairo,” made in 1985 long before the Allen scandals, Jeff Daniels starred as an old-timey, swashbuckling matinee idol. He magically steps off the screen to woo a movie-going fan played by Mia Farrow.
Jeff Daniels: “You know, I still can’t get over the fact that 24 hours ago I was in an Egyptian tomb. I didn’t know any of you wonderful people. I gotta speak to you.”
Mia Farrow: “You mean me?”
Jeff Daniels’ many hit movies included Oscar winners like “Terms of Endearment,” “The Hours” and “Good Night and Good Luck.” He starred in the cult classic “Something Wild,” in “Dumb and Dumber” and in smaller independent movies like “The Squid and the Whale.” Then, there were his starring roles on Broadway and his Emmy-winning work on TV shows like “The Newsroom.”…