EXCLUSIVE: Two-time Emmy winner Jeff Daniels is joining previously cast Oscar winner Brendan Fraser in the cosmic sci-fi thriller Starman.
Emmy-winning filmmaker Josh Wakely, who is writing and directing, will roll cameras this summer.
Daniels will play Ed Watkins, the protective and powerful co-leader of a transformational company he built alongside visionary technologist Tom Adams (Fraser), a man who means far more to Ed than the company itself.
In Starman, Tom Adams is an architect of the future who launches a historic expedition to Mars, positioning himself at the forefront of humanity’s next great frontier. But when unforeseen events strand him millions of miles from Earth, his mission becomes an urgent race against time—driven not by survival alone, but by love.
Starman is a GRACE: A Storytelling Company production and is produced by Eddie Vaisman of Sight Unseen—who most recently produced Fraser’s Searchlight film Rental Family—and Wakely and Rebecca Graham of GRACE: A Storytelling Company. David S. Goyer (Batman Begins) executive produces alongside Tarek Sherif, Ryan Graves, Matt Tedder and Sight Unseen’s Julia Lebedev. The film is financed by Sherif and Graves. Anton is handling international sales, which launched at the Marché du Film de Cannes.
Daniels won two Emmys, taking home Best Lead Actor in a Drama Series for The Newsroom and Best Supporting Actor for Godless. A three-time Tony Award nominee, his Broadway credits include To Kill a Mockingbird (the highest-grossing American play in Broadway history) Blackbird, and God of Carnage.
Daniels’ feature credits include The Martian, Terms of Endearment, The Hours, Pleasantville, Gettysburg, and Good Night and Good Luck. He stars opposite Jennifer Aniston and Reese Witherspoon in the upcoming fifth season of Apple TV’s Emmy-nominated drama The Morning Show and can currently be seen as Jimmy’s father in season 3 of Shrinking, also on Apple TV.
Most recently, Daniels starred in Netflix’s limited series A Man in Full. He will next be seen portraying former President Ronald Reagan in the Cold War thriller The Brink of War, opposite J.K. Simmons and Jared Harris. Daniels also just wrapped 2034 for Netflix, starring opposite Rachel McAdams, with Joseph Gordon Levitt directing, and produced by Rian Johnson and Ram Bergman.
The actor is represented by LBI Entertainment, Martino Management and Yorn, Levine.
GRACE: A Storytelling Company was founded by Wakely, creator of the Emmy-winning Netflix animated series Beat Bugs and its follow-up Motown Magic. Wakely also secured life rights to boxing legend Muhammad Ali and originated and is an executive producer on the upcoming Amazon scripted series The Greatest.
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