Brian Kruger 0:00
Welcome to Richard Helppie’s Common Bridge, the fiercely nonpartisan discussion that seeks policy solutions to issues of the day. Rich is a successful entrepreneur in the technology, health, and finance space. He and his wife Leslie are also philanthropists with interest in civic and artistic endeavors, with a primary focus on medically and educationally underserved children.

Richard Helppie 0:23
Welcome to the Common Bridge. We’ve got a great guest today. You’ll recognize him– actor, writer, playwright, singer, and a really great icon of our times in Jeff Daniels. Jeff, I really appreciate you being here and spending some time I know you’re really busy these days.(Jeff: I am. But it’s it’s, happy to do this.) Great. Today we want to talk about the arts and specifically the performing arts. We’ve missed them, I’ve missed them. It’s the biggest thing during the pandemic, besides being apart from family and friends. It just kind of feels like the soul was ripped out of our society. We couldn’t go to a play, we couldn’t see live music, we couldn’t go see a film with other people. And I just thought about how audiences might be reacting to that and the artists themselves and that came to a screeching halt. And so today on the Common Bridge, our guest Jeff is unquestionably qualified to talk about this. Now, Jeff, I think you’ve been in about 80 feature films. I hear your voice doing voiceovers in various places. You’ve been nominated for a Tony Award on Broadway for “God’s of Carnage,” you’ve won an Emmy for your work at “Network.” And what our audience might not know is that you’re also an exceptional playwright. You’ve authored scripts, you’ve written musicals, you tour with your guitar and you sing. And by the way, audience, this is an actor that can sing and tell great stories. And he actually has stories about actors that cannot sing and they’re quite entertaining. And most recently, you’ve won critical acclaim for your performance as Atticus Finch in “To Kill a Mockingbird,” and, of course, the founder of the renowned Purple Rose Theatre in Chelsea, Michigan. So Jeff, again, welcome. I know our audience knows a lot about you from the professional side, your public work, but you’ve also been a great booster for your hometown, and you’ve gotten involved with other causes. And you’re very strong with your personal relationships, long-term friendships and such. Anything you’d like to share with our audience before we dive into what we’re going to talk about today in terms of Performing Arts.

Jeff Daniels 2:34
No, you covered it. That was like “This is Your Life” with Ralph Edwards. That was good. That was pretty much everything. Yeah.

Richard Helppie 2:42
So you’ve been busy. So you’ve been you’ve been working. And that’s good.

Jeff Daniels 2:45
I am working. I am working. And I think one of the things back to your earlier comment about the arts and audience’s reaction to not having them. There’s also those of us who are in the arts, who have spent our lives in the arts. They pulled the plug. And as my agent said, when the pandemic hit, he goes, “now I know how to get you to stop working. Throw a pandemic.” And over the year, and it was a year, certainly away from acting, that now that I’m back in it, and we’ve been shooting this series for Showtime called “American Rust,” we’ve been shooting it since March 1, and we’re you know, this is June. So we’re four months in, seven weeks to go. I forgot that I missed it. Or I realized that I missed it. And why do I miss it? I mean, I could retire. I, you know, I’ve had a good run and you know and going in at the pandemic, I was thinking, boy, I’d love to be finished with this go out with Atticus Finch. You know, Ted Williams hits a home run gets in the dugout goes to his car, do that. But I think the thing that’s common between what the audience– I have a feeling will return to because they miss it and what the artists will return to because they miss it, is that when you do great art, whether it’s a song, a book, a movie, a play, whatever it might be, you’re more than you. I’ve always said you know when I’m, when I become Atticus when I become Harry Dunne in “Dumb and Dumber,” when I become Frank Griffin in “Godless,” I’m more than just me. And I think that’s what happens when people get inside a theater– in my case, like with “To Kill a Mockingbird” and they shut the doors behind them. And they are transported and it’s great art that does that. You can stand… I remember shooting… no I was doing some press in Paris, and I went to The Leuvre. I gotta go to The Leuvre. I’ve never been there. Gotta say it, got to do it. And I stood in front of “The Mona Lisa,” which is not big. I mean, it’s like this. (guestures) It’s not. It’s not, you think… it’s not. And you just get pulled in. And the smile and the half smile and the look in the eyes and the way that it, that the painting was captured. What it does is it pulls us out up into something else. And we experience life more fully. That’s what the arts can do. You don’t have to do the arts. But I think you’re less than you could be if you kind of gave yourself over to art that is well done and takes you beyond your insignificant self, which is what it comes down to. I think, I think the arts gives us significance, understanding, and it’s like, it’s like getting wings. We can’t fly, but when you stand in front of great art, or you experience great art, yes, you can. It gives you wings.

Richard Helppie 5:48
Indeed, and I understand what you’re saying about “The Mona Lisa,” and “The David,” clearly things that leave you speechless. Left me speechless. And I think you enjoy a reputation of being really well prepared for your roles. And I’ve had the pleasure on the occasion to see you perform a number of times. And when you were doing “Blackbird,” that to me was so extraordinary. I don’t want to see it again, by the way. Because, that was very powerful. And I think they’re bringing it back, with a different cast. But it’s that kind of range, where, when I see you perform, you’re into that character. And “To Kill a Mockingbird” was a great rewrite of this very, very powerful book and play about our time. And it has so much relevance to today, and the treatment based on what a person of one color might say versus what a person of another color might be saying. And I think the way that the writers worked it, was extraordinary. And you and the cast members deserve all the accolades that you’re receiving. Now, you ended your run with “To Kill a Mockingbird.” True?

Jeff Daniels 7:06
Yes, I ended it once. Yes.

Richard Helppie 7:08
Is there something that you can share with us or it’s news to come?

Jeff Daniels 7:12
No, it’s been announced. It was announced, I believe last week. So it’s new. And it wasn’t for sure. But, it got done. And there are a bunch of reasons to go back. One I didn’t feel I had to. I had done it for a year. Eight shows a week for a year, I didn’t miss a show, I was Cal Ripken, Jr.– 415 shows, never missed. Which is I mean, there are people who did that. There were two other cast members in “To Kill a Mockingbird” who also didn’t miss. It’s a long haul. It’s a slog. It’s a marathon. And I just wanted to– I had a feeling that might be the last one. And television, you know premium cable, “Prestige Dramas,” is what they’re calling it, is calling me and they’re calling me a lot and I really enjoy working in front of the camera. So I didn’t, I didn’t artistically need to go back. I had done it every way I could think of, goodnight. But with the pandemic, with Broadway shutting down –being a part of the reopening, if we can get the show up to what I remember it being, which is a lot of work, because you’re going to have some of the members of the cast who are from the original production, some who are not, a few that are new, and we only have four weeks so I don’t want to put up the show again and have it be creaky, not as good, so that was an issue. I was able to get Celia Keenan-Bolger back as Scout– I would not do it without her. She’s essential. It’s a two- headed monster–“To Kill a Mockingbird” is not just Atticus — and Celia won the Tony Award for it, so I had to have her. So the producers made that happen. Now, it’s also what Atticus Finch means today in today’s America post- George Floyd. Post all the wokeness. Also being aware now of white privilege, white blindness. You know, an African-American friend of mine, Thornetta Davis, who, we did a song together called “I Am America.” And Thornetta, you know, I was talking about the Statue of Liberty. And she says, “Yeah, we only see the back of that.” (Rich interjects “Oh, boy.”) “Yeah, it’s pointed towards Europe, Ireland, England, France, Germany, not pointed towards Africa. And we’d been there for 200 years when they erected it, or 100 years now. 200 years. 200 years of slaves.” And so I was like, that was just, it’s just perspective. When you’re brought up in a small town, that’s white, that’s what you know. That doesn’t mean you’re a racist. But that does mean you have to you, you know, that there’s a whole other side to American history. And certainly the original sin of the Founding Fathers is now at a crossroads, I think. So what can my going back as Atticus Finch do to help that and as long as there’s systemic racism out there, or that white people who need to “come to Jesus” on this, then it’s relevant. And as I went through the script– I was going through it yesterday– and (long pause) and it’s and what Harper (Lee) wrote, what Aaron (Sorkin) wrote, it still resonates. It may be 1934, Maycomb, Alabama. But you know when the judge talks about Boo Radley–(Oh, we’re not going to pin the murder on him. Everybody thinks he’s a gang member. Everyone thinks he’s a father– stabbed his father was scissors. He’s going to end up in a mental facility.) And what’s that get us? You know? And you look at that going, Oh, yeah, that’s social media. That’s cancel culture. They’re gonna cancel Boo Radley. Got to blame somebody. So I think it’s gonna resonate even more. The other thing is that I didn’t think that we could ever match– whether it’s going back to Atticus or some other Broadway play– that I would ever match the electricity I felt nearly every night doing that show. Certainly leading up to opening it was electric. You were the toast of the town. You were the number one show on Broadway. You were “it” for a year. You can’t top that. You got the critics, you got the audiences, you got the the dignitaries coming backstage– Robert De Niro sitting in my dressing room– that’s not gonna happen again, to that level. So go out with a homerun. But now with the pandemic, and post everything racially that we’ve been going through, I’m interested to see what that audience is, you know, they’ve talked about it’s the Roaring 20’s all over again, 100 years later. I think we’re going to find out. The audiences could be so ready for this. And so ready, as you were saying earlier, for any kind of live human connection, which I think is what the arts can do when you shut the doors and you go. That I think it could be a great three months. So I said, Yes.

Richard Helppie 12:02
I’m happy that you did do that. I had occasion to travel to New York and see the show, as you know, my wife and I enjoy Broadway. And I thought it was great. And if you don’t mind me telling my audience the happenstance that, did not know it, but a woman who taught my children in school, English and who taught the book for over 30 years, saw the show and we — she just happened to be there at the same time. And she raved about it and said it was very true.

Jeff Daniels 12:35
Lucky us. Not all of them did. I met her the first two or three previews. It was like walking out for an audience. And going one, he’s not Gregory Peck. (Rich laughs) And two, they’re all holding the book. That was the first three shows. So the fact that she liked what, what Aaron did with Harper is wonderful.

Richard Helppie 12:57
Yeah. And the other thing that she said was, “oh, that line they had the judge say, that was one Scout said. So like, everything got distributed.” And I know there’s something about the way the program was put on because it couldn’t put so much on this character or this kid to do it correctly. You know, that’s over my head. All I can say is that I had an expert there. That said it’s true to the book who has no public voice or axe to grind– just somebody that taught it for over 30 years.

Jeff Daniels 13:27
Yeah, first thing Aaron did, was the trial in the book doesn’t happen till I’m gonna say two thirds of the way through the book. First thing that Aaron did was we open with the trial, we’re in the trial, and then we keep jumping back and forth and back and forth but so that just, just that alone, you can see books just flying up in the audience as they were pitching them going “well, they’ve ruined it!”

Richard Helppie 13:51
Well, other than the Iron Man piece, how’d you do on developing that accent? That had to be a bit of a hurdle?

Jeff Daniels 13:58
Ah, no, it was it was, you know, Peck didn’t really have one in the movie. Peck kind of did Peck. And you know, as going into it, you’re going “Well, what are you going to do differently”; can’t just be different. You have to really commit — Yeah, no, let’s go for the accent. So I found a guy named Frank Johnson, who was a federal judge in the 60’s. He put KKK guys in prison. His court was located, a federal judge in northwest Alabama. So as a judge, he was putting Klan members in jail. So he was not well liked. And he had an accent that was just hard r’s and, you know…(Jeff goes into a southern accent)… registrar and quarter law. I mean, that was Frank. And so I went into one of the final workshops. I remember, I hadn’t really been doing anything. And there are a couple New York cast members that had been around forever. And they, you know, they assume once you go to Hollywood, that you’re tainted and poisoned forever and that the New York actors, the stage people are the you know, the the grit of the industry… and yeah, and there are Hollywood people that come on to Broadway for three months, try to win a Tony and leave, they can’t do eight shows a week. They’re tired. They’re inconsistent. And so I could feel that a little bit. And so I was just doing me– kind of walking around with a script for about three weeks. And then we sat down to read it through and or something another read through with rewrites. And I just dropped the Alabama accent on them, which was me going: “We’re all going to be doing accents. Here’s mine. ” And so I remember, a couple of the cast members looked over as ah, you know, it was like it was a challenge. Let’s go. We had a dialect coach, Kate Wilson, who came in and she made a great point. She said Frank Johnson, she said, Yes, I’ve listened to him. He’s from the 50’s, and the 60’s and he grew up with radio. And once you have radio, you now hear accents from all over the world. It’s whatever, you know, shows were on at the time, that you’re not hearing your Alabama accent anymore. You’re hearing something else. So he had changed his accent… we’re gonna do a 1930s Alabama accent… so softer r’s, and so I worked with her a little bit and was able to get on top of it. And she was happy, which was great, because that was one less thing I had to worry about going into opening.

Richard Helppie 16:25
And when we talk about opening, it’s just not like, oh, we’re gonna throw a switch and we’re open. There had to be some challenges. Like, if you don’t know when you’re gonna have opening night, how do you know when to do all the other things you need to do before you put on a production? You can’t sell a ticket if you don’t know what date its going to be, you can’t audition a cast… that had to be a tremendous amount of work and coordination. And I’m going to guess like anything else behind the scenes, there’s probably a lot of chaos and missed handoffs and the like.

Jeff Daniels 16:57
Oh, my God. And it’s a big show. It’s a musical at the Shubert Theater, it’s got, as you know, it’s got set pieces coming in, they’re hydraulic, in from the side you walk up on, (and) suddenly you’re on the porch. And things can(Jeff makes dramatic noise for affect) stop, you know, the train can go off the tracks. And over the course of the year, we probably had four or five of those things: “please stop the show actors leave the stage actors leave the stage” will halt temporarily, they bring the curtain down, stage hands come in, get the thing back on. And you go and you go out there looking up a lot, you know, waiting for (it.) So that’s just stuff that happens on a big show. We knew opening night a year out. So that gives everybody on the production side and the actors the time to get ready for a December 13th opening, I believe it was, so we had three readings and two readings and two 10-day workshops in the winter and spring and then started rehearsals in mid Sept (trailing off) Labor Day. Yeah, mid September– six weeks of rehearsals, and we’re still finding our legs. And then we go into tech, which is 10 days of stop, fix a light, fix a sound cue, backup stuff. It’s– the actors lose it for 10 days, you are not… you’re just chess pieces on a board being moved around to make sure the lighting is right. And other things and it’s it’s essential. And then you get a couple runs at it. And then you start previews, which were November 1 before the December 13th. We did 45 previews before that opening night. And that’s a lot. And that includes– they’re like double headers every day. Because if you’re doing a show at night, you’re also rehearsing in the afternoon because there are rewrites.

Richard Helppie 18:52
Is there a date set for the reopening?

Jeff Daniels 18:55
For the reopening, our first show is October 5th. That’s all I know, though, as far as I’m concerned, especially with the internet, that’s opening night.

Richard Helppie 19:03
How is New York? I have not been there since the pandemic and…

Jeff Daniels 19:07
I hear it’s busting at the seams. You know, I hear it’s that people are just out. They’re just out. I mean, it’s the people that I know that are living there are just going wow. It’s exciting. It’s great. And the tourists aren’t even here yet which you know, some of the diehard New Yorkers enjoy.

Richard Helppie 19:24
Yeah, well you know, New York, I always love Midtown and always love Broadway and the bustle and did a little bit of work on Wall Street and such and it literally is a city you don’t have to sleep if you don’t want to. There’s been a lot of publicity about it that just hasn’t been good. But you know, I’m one that’s very skeptical of the news reporting services because they have their thing they want to tell you about, you know, versus what’s really happening on the ground. And you know, you couldn’t have a Broadway reopening, even with a handful of shows, if people couldn’t get safely into their hotels and restaurants and whatever else they’re doing during the day while they’re waiting to see the show. But you haven’t been back there yet?

Jeff Daniels 20:05
No. But all indications are Roaring 20’s.

Richard Helppie 20:09
That’s great. Jeff, a topic very near to your heart and has become very near to my heart is The Purple Rose Theatre. For those people that don’t know what the Purple Rose Theatre is, Jeff founded this off-broadway quality, professional theater in his hometown of Chelsea, Michigan. It enjoys a tremendous reputation as an artistic venue, 168 seats, three sides around and if you’ve listened to Jeff talk about the way that the audience–you step out of reality for the time of that show, I’ve experienced that many times at the theatre, and the regional theaters don’t have the infrastructure and they don’t have the economic backing that the big professional theaters do. Yet, like everybody, they got shut down and shut down hard for the pandemic. How are things looking over at The Rose, right now?

Jeff Daniels 21:00
We’re okay, we’re gonna survive it. We held on to people for as long as we could. Longer than most. And now we’re down to four people that we felt were essential to reboot. And we had done well with fundraising and with box office. I had done some live stream concerts that raised a lot of money that allowed us to hang on to those people so that when we do open the doors again, (and we are starting to rehire now) what we had before will continue. And these people are key to that. We’re gonna downsize a little bit. I think one of the things that the theatre needs to do is… I want it to exist when I’m not here anymore. And the four people who are in there now aren’t here anymore, either. It has to sustain itself for the community, for the greater good of the southeastern corner of Michigan. It’s a destination now, and it’s the arts at a professional level. So we have the protocols, we have the policies, we have the how-to-do-what-we-do’s all there ready to go being passed on to another group. And now we’re going to put that group together. We’re going to diversify. We’ve got a whole diversity program now. That really is we’re finding and developing and reading and getting ready to produce playwrights of color and it’s time. We want to lead the way in that.

Richard Helppie 22:30
Well, to be fair, you haven’t been shy or The Purple Rose Theatre has not been shy about taking on some of the most sensitive issues of the day.

Jeff Daniels 22:39
No, we, I feel proud about what we’ve done. You know, we we’ve our door has been open for 30 years, but I was raised that way. My dad introduced me to a guy named Herb Pearson in town. I was nine years old, maybe. I walked into my house and there’s an African American man sitting at our kitchen table with my dad and my dad said “Jeff, like you to meet a friend of mine, Herbie Pearson. He and his family just moved to town. That was all I needed to hear. My dad took him around town and introduced him to all his white friends as his friend, my friend, Herbie Pearson. Think he helped him get a job. That was my dad, my dad was Atticus. So that’s been ingrained in me. But you know, we open The Purple Rose, we’re in a predominantly white small town and we’re encouraging, but we didn’t reach out. So post George Floyd, got it, we’re gonna reach out. We’re going to grab you. You think you can write great, let’s get all the African American playwrights, Hispanic playwrights, transgender play(wrights), I don’t care. You want to write, let’s put you in the program. We got a year of this pandemic, let’s start to work on that. Let’s develop actors, let’s– door’s wide open folks, and they’re coming, which is great. We’re going to be a better theater because of it and the audiences will be better for it. And it’s it’s time, it’s time.

Richard Helppie 23:55
If my statistics are correct, I think 5% of the writers in Hollywood are black and 4% are women so…

Jeff Daniels 24:02
Yeah, give them six months Rich, I mean, you can see it coming. All you got to look at is television commercials. Every ethnicity, every color every gen(der) it’s all there. And I think it’s, culture gets ahead of politics sometimes. And Ron Brownstein wrote a book called “Rock Me on the Water.” And in it, he makes the case for coming out of the 60s, the culture was ahead of Nixon and all of that, and it became more open and all of that. That’s his theory. And I think it’s coming. I think there’s a new America coming and the arts should lead the way, and it’s not going to be the way it was it just isn’t.

Richard Helppie 24:41
To your point. I think people are fed up and disgusted and frustrated, which is one of the reasons I started doing this show. They’re not getting the answer from the Democrats. They’re not getting the answer from the Republicans. People look at news reporting and they expect that they’re being lied to or misled. And we’ve had had people on the show that have explained that business model of picking your audience and then continually outraging them in order to draw eyeballs and clicks and advertising. And as long as I’ve been doing this show, and people say, well, what’s it about? And I saw it’s fiercely nonpartisan policy-oriented discussion. And we actually read legislation, they go oh wow, we need that. I haven’t had anybody go, why would I need that if I have, and I’m not gonna name any– fill in the name of your favorite villain from the wherever you are happened to be on the spectrum. But I but I share your optimism that we can get to a better day. And as you know, I’m working with some people that have done a couple of movies that have some things in the pipeline right now, just to get human stories out that really cross all lines, and frankly, lines that shouldn’t be there. And I’m so glad you mentioned your father’s influence on you, because we are recording this today on Father’s Day. And Happy Father’s Day to you. And what today, Jeff, could you say is the best role that you’ve ever had in the world or on stage or film or anyplace.

Jeff Daniels 26:08
You know, the most important one, of course, is the family. And to the degree that the father makes an impact on that family unit is the most important thing to me and always has, it’s why I moved back to Michigan instead of moving to LA in the 80’s, I just moved home. I wanted to raise a family there and have my family there and to see my kids grow up and now they’re in their 30’s and there are three grandkids, which is nice. You know, one of the great things about being a grandparent is that you no longer have to listen to other grandparents tell you how great grandparenting is. (Rich chuckles) And, and it is, it’s everything they say. I’m not there all the time– I’m working, I’m gone, I’m going to go to Mockingbird, so I’m not gonna be around the grandkids. You know, like grandpa in the chair waiting for them to come over and pull his finger. I’m not I’m not around as much. But I’ll tell you what’s a joy that I never saw coming, was watching my in this case, two boys presently, become fathers, become young parents, to care for their daughters or their son to talk to them in a way that oh my God, I remember that. And it’s, it’s the cycle of life and just to be present, and around. To see that is, is glorious. It really is.

Richard Helppie 27:30
You know, Jeff, I share that in watching my son and daughters become parents. And, and I look at that I go “did we do that? I get we must have, this makes me tired.” But I have the best job I’ve ever had, being the grandfather. And also I can wear a hat now, I wear a hat. You know, mostly for sun protection, because I just don’t have enough hair anymore. But it’s it’s the it’s the best job I’ve ever had. Jeff, can we kind of touch a little bit on on government, and federal, state, municipal, any support or things that would make life easier or more difficult for the arts? Like I don’t know if in your time or with your, you know, professional peers, have you ever walked into someone and go really, we can’t do that? Or really we have to do that? Or hey, Wow, this is great. Look at this kind of support we’re getting. Is that integrated at all with any of the policy decisions that get made. It’s something we talk about on The Common Bridge, and I’m not aware of any, I just wondered if you were? (Jeff: You mean, if we do this, we’ll raise more money?) Rich: For example, they you know that there was a regulation on if you’re going to put a theater here, you’ve got to put in more parking or, you know, you you’re going to be subject to, you know, certain law or, you know, are there you know, support to the arts. I know, we have the National Endowment for the Arts and various, you know, state groups help support it. And I think people would agree that that’s a necessary thing, because patrons and box office sales won’t cover and it takes everyone at large be able to contribute to the support, otherwise, people are going to get shut out. And art can’t be this thing that embraces the whole society if everyone can’t get in. So if you were going to advise the Governor of the State of Michigan or the President of the United States, what would you tell them you’re looking for?

Jeff Daniels 29:29
Well, it’s hard to change people’s minds if they only want to watch “American Idol” and the “Keep(ing) Up with the Kardashians,” I can’t help you. But, if we were just going to go for-profit, then we would run the most popular play we could every time, and run it for as long as we could, because then it’s just about the money. It’s about getting everybody paid and making money and that’s what it’s about. Look at us. We made a profit we’re a success. And what the not-for-profit theater does, or even places like The Ark, an Ann Arbor not-for-profit-music venue. It’s a little bit like Netflix, Hulu and HBO and all those things. They don’t have to have a great opening weekend as a movie, they can do something like “Godless” which is a western, which no movie studio would do now, because westerns don’t sell. They don’t make a big profit anymore. So they’ve stopped doing them. But a Netflix can do “Godless” and they know that people who like westerns will pick them and there’s a niche.

Richard Helppie 30:33
(Agreeing) And you were great in that. What exactly was the body count in “Godless?”

Jeff Daniels 30:39
Personally, I was in double digits, I know that. (Rich chuckling) Sometimes in one scene. But the not-for-profit, it allows us to take chances, it allows us to push you, it allows us to challenge you, it allows us to tell you a story that you haven’t heard before or seen somewhere else. You’re just seeing it again. Reruns, we’re not doing reruns. We want you to sit down and know nothing about this. And lights go down and off we go together. And we want to take you someplace that you think you know what you’re going to know even better when you’re done. Having seen, I mean “Flint” the play I wrote, “Flint,” (Rich: Fantastic.) And we didn’t say anything, because you know, the water was a problem, and Snyder was in trouble, and everybody was screaming and yelling, and a lot of people were dying. And, movie star’s gonna write a play about Flint. Oh, God here, he’s going to go after Snyder. I mentioned him once just in passing, just as a reference, and nothing to do with anything that he may or may not have had to do with that. The play was about systemic racism. And it was written after Michael Brown was killed in Ferguson, Missouri, after Trayvon Martin, after Dylan Roof. And it wasn’t going to be you know, hollywood liberal, takes a run at Snyder, about the water. The water was a metaphor for a city that had been forgotten when the car companies moved out. And this is what is left. And I had read Carol Anderson’s “White Rage” versus black advancement, among other books. (“White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide”) And it was, it was I was speaking to it before people were speaking to it after George Floyd. And I remember the first couple previews– people came down, and a lot of people from Flint came down that first weekend. And a couple said, We’re like, “Escanaba” we thought you were going to make fun of us. And they were rocked. We had a middle… and we did talk backs, we had a middle-aged auto worker who had been forgotten and dumped. And he just, he started doing the talk back and commenting about… he said, “that’s, that’s” and you just start crying. We hit a nerve with that. And, but because we’re non-profit, we can run that thing for six weeks, we can take a chance that maybe some people aren’t gonna like it. And some people sure as hell didn’t. But we don’t care. That’s what we do. And if you were to sit there for the 90 minutes it took, you might have come out a little different, maybe just angrier. But certainly a lot of people came out and started to look at that situation a little bit differently, which is all you ever want.

Richard Helppie 33:19
Jeff, I think you’ve said it there. And in fact, you know, my brand promise for The Common Bridge is that everybody should find something to not like in every episode, because it’s real easy in these times to go get affirmation. To take your preset conceptions, your outrage buttons and go get them fed. And you know exactly, people know exactly where to go. If you’ve got this persuasion or that persuasion. That’s the business.

Jeff Daniels 33:48
Sorkin was talking about that in “Newsroom.” We were mentioning that in “Newsroom” quite a bit before it was popular and sure enough, here we are.

Richard Helppie 33:56
But I was going to compliment on “Flint,” the humanization of all the characters and that arc from this you know, really unique period in history when United States automakers had 75% of worldwide market supply and car was king and you know General Motors was the largest employer, and from that peak– the devastation to everybody– then how things splintered and I thought the way you guys picked it up in “Willow Run” now that wasn’t one you wrote, David McGregor wrote that?

Jeff Daniels 34:31
No, I forget who wrote it but but it was a really it was a great show.

Richard Helppie 34:35
It was a great show (Jeff: Rosie the Riveters and Willow Run and all that, yeah.) Rich: People when you come to The Purple Rose, I will tell you that you will hear about redemption and hope; that real things happen to real people. And when we began this talk today with Jeff, we talked about the soul being ripped out of our society because we didn’t have the performing arts. Jeff tried valiantly with streaming his singing. That had to be a weird experience without having an audience in front of you. (Jeff: Ehh, like shooting a movie, it really wasn’t that big a reach.”) Rich: But you couldn’t hear anybody laughing or not laughing.

Jeff Daniels 35:13
No. But it became more intimate. We did 77 live streams over the nine months. And tonight, you’re playing Sheboygan. Tomorrow, you’re playing Topeka. And then Thursday night, you’re in Alaska. I mean, it’s just the routing you could never do if you were in a you know, in a car trying to get there or playing. So I enjoyed it, it was like it was like a medium close up in a movie, you get to pull them in, whether you’re on the Shubert Stage on Broadway, or even The Purple Rose with 150 seats, the performance is still to some degree going out– going to them. The trick is to get them to pull them into you, which The Purple Rose, we work on that, that’s our kind of approach. But also it’s film acting, you don’t go to the camera, you you try to pull them into you and and that’s just the little trick of filmmaking. So to put a guitar in my hand and look at a camera here. And then here’s another one there. I’m playing to one person who’s really interested. That’s the trick and and I tend to enjoy it, because there was no travel, I could walk over to the recording studio, I did it with my two boys. And I enjoyed it. I hope I get to do that more. I hope that doesn’t go away. It’s too convenient.

Richard Helppie 36:30
Yeah, well look, there’s parts of the world, like we’re talking right now, we’re going to be able to put this up on our YouTube channel, there’s going to be more meetings that are done absent travel. As you know, that was something I was in the very early stages of about remote working; that there is that need to see people in 3D that the beginning of the mental health crisis, we’re just beginning to see. And I wonder about child development when the only faces they could see smiling at them were in their own homes. And I think it’s gonna be a long time before we unwrap all of this. And I hope that those people like you, who think about this and write songs about it, and write scripts about it, and try to reach into our humanness for all this thing that we’ve experienced, and try to boil that down into 90 minutes or two hours is a formidable challenge. Jeff, this has been a great conversation and I do appreciate you being here. This is Rich Helppie your host of The Common Bridge with actor, playwright, singer, songwriter Jeff Daniels. Star of stage and screen and television–great career– hope that those of you that have the means and the interest can get to New York to see “To Kill a Mockingbird” and please register for our podcast and YouTube on RichardHelppie.com or on your favorite podcast channel. Please rate us; rate us high if you would please. This is Rich Helppie with our special guest today, Jeff Daniels, signing off on The Common Bridge.

Brian Kruger 38:05
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