Actor Jeff Daniels will go from playing Atticus Finch on Broadway to James Comey in a new CBS Television Studios miniseries based on the disgraced FBI director’s memoirs A Higher Loyalty: Truth, Lies and Leadership.
Daniels — who has been vocally anti-Trump for years and has even advocated for physical violence against the president — is expected to start filming his new role in November. There’s no word yet on when the miniseries will air, or on which CBS property, potentially Showtime or CBS All Access.
Billy Ray, who wrote Captain Phillips and the upcoming Clint Eastwood film Richard Jewell, is penning and directing the project.
Ray told Deadline in a statement: “Jeff is so perfect for this part. Great actor, instant integrity, loads of warmth, intelligence, complexity and gravitas… We talked backstage after I saw him in To Kill a Mockingbird on Broadway, and I knew I was looking at the only person who could play Jim Comey. Lucky for me, he said yes.”
Daniels is set to conclude his Broadway run in To Kill a Mockingbird on Nov. 3. The actor has publicly railed against President Donald Trump numerous times in TV interviews and on his Twitter account.
He once told MSNBC that Trump has “soiled the presidency.”
The star appeared earlier this year on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and said that Trump’s challenger needs to be somebody who can “punch him in the face.”
Comey served as the head of the FBI from 2013 to 2017, when he was fired by President Donald Trump. It was later revealed that Comey violated bureau policy by leaking several memos with classified information to an associate with instructions to pass the information to a reporter.
Attorney General William Barr decided in August not prosecute the fired FBI director over his wrongdoings.
In recent days, Comey has publicly advocated for impeachment proceedings against Trump.
“Some media are quoting me from last week about my hope that America will remove Donald Trump by an election, not Impeachment. But we may now be at the point where members of the House and Senate can’t uphold their own oaths to support and defend the Constitution without acting,” Comey said last month.
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