The success of 'The Newsroom' was placed squarely on the shoulders of Jeff Daniels, who had two weeks to learn a last-minute Aaron Sorkin monologue placed at the beginning of the HBO pilot
In the three-minute speech, Daniels’ McAvoy, anchor and managing editor within the fictional Atlantis Cable News, bluntly explains the country’s vast shortcomings, thus why America isThat speech saved the show — and the show saved Daniels’ career, the actor reminisced.
“That was the speech I had been waiting 35 years to do,” he said. “You have to hit a home run with it. It was shot on day three of an 18-day shoot for the pilot. There was no guarantee we had a series. People bigger than Aaron Sorkin had gotten turned down by HBO. This was a key day because not only are we going to find out do we have a Will McAvoy but do we have a show.
Top network executives came to the taping that day, Daniels recalled, along with a number of the cast. “Sam [Waterston] later said ‘I just wanted to see if I was going to have a job or not.’ It was all one me,” Daniels said. “I worked my ass off on it. First take, I hit it out of the park. I know that because Aaron walked over to me after take one and he goes, ‘OK, you’re pitching a no-hitter. I’m not going to talk to you.’ And he walked away. That was great.
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