Citizens of Mockingbird: Jeff Daniels on Becoming Atticus Finch, the Iconic Hero Without a Cape

In adapting Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird for the stage, award-winning scribe Aaron Sorkin looked at the iconic characters of the recently named "best-loved" American novel with fresh eyes. In this exclusive series, Broadway.com talks with Sorkin and the talented performers who bring the citizens of Mayomb, Alabama to life every night at the Shubert Theatre.

JEFF DANIELS AS ATTICUS FINCH
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CHARACTER: Atticus Finch, a small-town lawyer and widower raising two children whose life is changed forever when he’s convinced to represent Tom Robinson, a black man wrongly accused of rape.

ACTOR: Jeff Daniels is one of the leading stage and film actors of his generation. On Broadway, he was nominated for Tony Awards for God of Carnage in 2009 and Blackbird in 2016 and has also appeared in The Golden Age, Redwood Curtain and in the original company of Lanford Wilson’s Fifth of July. Film and TV highlights include Terms of Endearment, The Purple Rose of Cairo, Something Wild, The Butcher’s Wife, Gettsyburg, Dumb and Dumber, Fly Away Home, 101 Dalmations, Pleasantville, The Hours, Gods and Generals, The Squid and the Whale, Dumb and Dumber To, Steve Jobs, Godless, The Looming Tower and three seasons of Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom, earning three Emmy Award nominations and one win. Daniels also runs his own theater company, The Purple Rose Theatre Company, in his hometown of Chelsea, Michigan.

JEFF DANIELS ON PLAYING ATTICUS FINCH: "Atticus is a lot like my dad. I grew up with an Atticus. The thing that surprised me the most is how relevant [To Kill a Mockingbird] is today. You look at what’s going on in America—the divide in this country. A lot of the things that Atticus has to deal with in the play, America has to deal with this afternoon."

AARON SORKIN ON JEFF DANIELS: "There was never even a conversation about casting another actor. It was Jeff Daniels from the very first phone call. What makes Jeff great as Atticus first and foremost is simply his skills as an actor. He has ungodly skills. He walks onstage and puts the audience in his pocket and doesn’t let them go until the curtain call."

Photographed at the Shubert Theatre by Caitlin McNaney for Broadway.com