Ben Mark Holzberg/CBS Television Studios/SHOWTIME(LOS ANGELES) — Jeff Daniels plays former FBI head James Comey in the new Showtime movie The Comey Rule, which debuts Sunday night.
Daniels fought hard to get the film released before election day, and he tells ABC Audio that the film might change some minds.
“I think it could have an impact on the 20 percent in the middle. I’d like to think those people still exist,” he explains.
Adds Daniels, “A lot of them…believe in decency, civility and doing unto others,” and they’re not seeing that from Donald Trump.
The film, which will air in two parts, focuses on Comey’s role in the Hillary Clinton e-mail investigation, and his rocky relationship with President Trump. If you’re a little foggy on the details, Daniels says that’s okay.
“I think what happened will come back to them,” he tells ABC Audio.. “And then like me, if they’re like me, they’re going to find out things that they didn’t know. That the reasons why he did what he did or what he was up against, if he chose to do this versus choosing to do that, the rock and a hard place thing that Comey found himself in.”
So what other things did Daniels discover about Comey?
“I learned how thoughtful he is, that he listens to other opinions different from his own. That he respects people. All people. People of color, women,” he says.
“I found him to be smart, but he was guided by something bigger than himself, and he stuck to that and religiously, And that was hard to do, Daniels continues. “He was an apolitical public servant. At a time when the country is so polarized that to be a political as like to be an alien.”
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