Actor Jeff Daniels takes on the serious role of playing the ex-FBI Director James Comey in a new two-part Showtime limited series called The Comey Rule. The show is based on the #1 New York Times bestseller, A Higher Loyalty. It's not a biopic, instead focusing on accounts surrounding the 2016 election and it's aftermath.
Five Things You Need to Know:
- In the two-night, four-hour series, Brendan Gleeson plays President Donald Trump and Holly Hunter portrays Sally Yates.
- Dumb and Dumber star, Daniels, says it was a little daunting playing a real person and it made a big difference when James Comey saw the finished series and liked it. "Yeah, it’s a little unnerving to see a real guy but I kind of treat all of them like that whether they are real or not," Daniels said.
- Daniel has made no secret of his feelings about Donald Trump and is sympathetic to how Comey was treated. "What happened to Jim Comey seemed like 10 years ago, that’s because of Trump so we need to understand that it hasn’t stopped or will it," Daniels said. "The corruption, the lie,s the disinformation and that maybe for this election we become more informed, that we take a stronger interest and more focused approach to the vote and this election, I don’t think we had that in 2016."
- With a little more than a month before the November elections, Daniels hopes The Comey Rule encourages voters to become more informed. "Certainly you are going to hear the other side of the Jim Comey story, that one side Trump says he’s a liar, this is the other side," said Daniels.
- While immersing himself in the role, Daniels was still surprised to learn a few things about the former FBI director. "The pros and cons of each decision, you go, 'Oh, he really was between a rock and a hard place.' You may disagree with what he did, but the why he did it was a rock and a hard place, none of these were easy decisions for him," Daniels said.