Jeff DANIELS

I’m Evan Smith, the editor of TEXAS MONTHLY.

At the moment, he’d like you to forget that he’s an actor — one of the greats of his generation, as fine a role-player as a leading man, someone who chooses projects wisely and associates himself with the best talent out of Hollywood, Broadway, and elsewhere, someone who hasn’t let success go to his head — quite the opposite, in fact. Someone who has earned the respect and affection of peers and fans alike over a truly remarkable thirty-year career that includes such credits as, on screen, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Something Wild, Ragtime, Terms of Endearment, The Hours, and Good Night and Good Luck, and, on stage, Redwood Curtain, The Golden Age, and Fifth of July. Instead, Jeff Daniels wants you to think of him as a singer — a folk singer, as a matter of fact, and not a bad one at that. The 53-year-old recently released his third album, Together Again, a collaboration with his old pal and fellow actor Jonathan Hogan — a collection of songs, some funny, recorded in the spring of 2007 with his son, Ben, at the mixing board, with all proceeds benefiting his beloved Purple Rose Theatre Company in his hometown of Chelsea, Michigan. His previous albums, Grandfather’s Hat and Jeff Daniels Live and Unplugged, reveal the regular guy behind the famous face -- an artist completely at peace with his art, and himself, no matter how uncommercial the project. And Daniels plays the regular guy with convincing sincerity, as we discovered when we caught up with him at Austin’s Cactus Café in the middle of a tour to promote the new record. It was him and his son, traveling around in a bus, staying the night at an RV park, anonymous and contented. No Four Seasons suite. No entourage. No trappings whatsoever of celebrity. Something wild indeed.

A conversation with Jeff Daniels, on this edition of TEXAS MONTHLY TALKS.