Jeff Daniels to Star in Hulu’s The Looming Tower

SANTA MONICA: Jeff Daniels (The Newsroom, The Martian, Steve Jobs) has been cast to star in Hulu’s new original drama The Looming Tower.

Daniels will play John O’Neill, the determined and at times bull-headed chief of the New York FBI’s Counter-Terrorism unit. O’Neill is convinced that the U.S. has been targeted for attack by Al Qaeda and faces deliberately insufficient cooperation from other organs of the Federal government, particularly from his counterpart at the frequently antagonistic CIA. O’Neill is a lover of expensive food and drink and is involved with at least two girlfriends, neither of whom know about his wife and children.

The Looming Tower will be adapted for Hulu as a ten-episode, hour-long drama series from Dan Futterman (Foxcatcher, Capote) and Alex Gibney (Going Clear: Scientology and The Prison of Belief, Taxi to the Dark Side, We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks). It is based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning exposé by Lawrence Wright.