Hi everyone, this is Kate Snow. I'm so happy to share with you a conversation that I had

with actor Jeff Daniels as part of my series The Drink. Jeff is of course known for so

many iconic roles from Will McAvoy in the newsroom to Harry Dunn in Dumb and Dumber.

But did you know that his own agents tried to stop him from filming Dumb and Dumber?

Really. Jeff says Risking Failure has always been a driving force throughout his career.

He's now back on Broadway as Atticus Finch into Kill a Mockingbird, also starring in the

Showtime series American Rust. You can hear many more stories of success from top artists,

entrepreneurs and visionaries. You can find it all at NBCNews.com slash The Drink.

Where does acting come in? At what point did you go, we don't want to do that?

It's only recently that I'm going, I think I'm actually going to be an actor.

We have a drink for you. Oh my God. Look at this. Oh wow. You asked for a cappuccino, right?

Zoom zoom. There we go. There we go. I am so excited because this is the first drink in person

that I've done in a year and a half. So cheers to that. Cheers to that. Yeah. All right, so the

drink is always about how you got to where you are. You're on Broadway again with

Kill a Mockingbird. You've got a show and showtime right now American Rust. How did you become

Jeff Daniels? It took 45 years. I never felt that I had kind of reached a plateau that I wanted

to get to until newsroom. That was, I'm going to say 55, 56, something like that. I'm 66 now.

And that's how they draw it up in star school. It's supposed to take that long.

You're supposed to peak at about 35. Right. Right. And then go down. Yes. You haven't done that.

And then it's plastic surgery so that you can still look like you did when you're in those

actions. You know, and we none of us believe you because it's all, you know, you don't look like

you've done. No, no, I am from the general school. Yeah. This is what I look like at 66. I hope

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