When Jeff Daniels’ Charlie Croker plays, he plays to win..at any cost. Charlie is a hugely successful real estate tycoon in Atlanta who is forced to defend his empire when faced with bankruptcy and a slew of ruthless enemies in Netflix’s A Man In Full.
This six-episode limited series, which premiered on May 2, has some serious Hollywood heavyweights behind it. David E. Kelley adapted Tom Wolfe’s book of the same name and served as showrunner and executive producer. Regina King and Tommy Schlamme each directed three episodes and executive produced the series. Starring alongside Daniels are Tom Pelphrey, Diane Lane, Lucy Liu, William Jackson Harper, Aml Ameen, Sarah Jones, Jon Michael Hill, Bill Camp, and Chanté Adams.
In a recent interview, Daniels explained why it was a no-brainer to take on this larger-than-life role. “He’s the star of his show and everyone he meets is his audience. He thinks that they love him almost as much as he loves himself. In the first episode he throws himself a 60th birthday party and hires Shania Twain to sing to him,” he laughed. “You just have to shake your head at this guy.”
As cunning as he is in business, Charlie unfortunately overlooked and underestimated his most dangerous enemy to date in Pelphrey’s Raymond Peepgrass, a man with a vengeance, nothing to lose, and a serious case of Schadenfreude. Their warring relationship is central to the story and brings to mind the saying about revenge-seeking and digging two graves.
Raymond is the most perilous kind of adversary. He has nothing on the line, nothing to lose, and everything to gain in Charlie’s downfall. His goal to take everything from Charlie becomes clear. By their very nature, neither man takes the wise action of stepping aside or standing down. It is a standoff.
Now serious in tone, Daniels discussed Charlie’s humiliating fall from grace. “The bank takes away his money and he has this sort of free-fall back down to earth. There’s maybe some humanity and goodness that follows.”
Pausing, he added, “It was a wild ride and I didn’t know how to do it. So, I said yes to David and Regina.”
No spoilers here on the shocking ending, but Daniels said Kelley’s creative mind took a detour from the ending of Wolfe’s novel. “What I love is that you just don’t see it coming and that’s good storytelling.”
Daniels explained how fun and challenging it is as an actor to blend drama with comedy. “With Charlie, there are serious scenes and issues but you’ve also got to be funny, but you’ve got to be funny without winking at the camera. You’ve got to inhabit this guy and he doesn’t know he’s funny. It was the same with Dumb and Dumber. Harry Dunne doesn’t know he’s funny and neither does Charlie Croker. He just is. That’s the magic trick actors attempt to try and pull off.”
Daniels circled back to Kelley’s incredible writing savvy. He was enthralled with this story and character and signed on the dotted line after reading just the first episode. Each script that followed got him even more excited. “As an actor, you ask, ‘Is it predictable? Do I know what’s going to happen?’ And if you’re right, there’s a good chance the audience will be ahead of you too. That’s not a good thing. With David, each script would come in and you just didn’t see this or that coming and certainly the ending,” he breaks in with a laugh. “It surprised me and I figured if it surprised me, it would surprise an audience.”
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