Movie and TV star Jeff Daniels is coming to Maine to sing and play.

On Jan. 17, the 59-year-old actor known for such movies as “Terms of Endearment,” “Speed” and “Gettysburg,” is scheduled to appear at the Stone Mountain Arts Center in Brownfield.

The sold-out listening audience is likely to learn what fans of his acting already know: Jeff Daniels can’t be pinned down.

After all, Daniels continued to earn acclaim in 2014 as a TV news anchor with a lacerating wit on HBO’s “The Newsroom.” He also reprised his role as Harry Dunne, Jim Carrey’s even dimmer buddy in the comedy, “Dumb and Dumber To.”

Meanwhile, he made music.

He released his fifth CD titled “Days Like These,” a mix of original blues, jazz, folk and rock songs.

The Sun Journal wanted to learn more about Daniels’ music and acting.

Daniels agreed to a phone interview, chatting about his music, his portrayal of Maine hero Joshua Chamberlain in “Gettysburg” and his work with writer Aaron Sorkin, which may even continue with the upcoming biopic “Steve Jobs.”

Name: Jeff Daniels

Age: 59

Hometown: Chelsea, Michigan

Can you describe the show you’re bringing? I want it to feel like a band showed up in your living room. We calibrate it for the room. I’m not trying to be a rock star but you will be tapping your feet. It’s original stuff. It’s stuff you can follow.

You’re not coming alone. Your son Ben and his band, the Ben Daniels Band, will be playing, too. What’s that like? It makes me younger, and to turn to your left and see your son on stage with you is a life highlight. And it works. It’s a show. They don’t open for me and go off the stage. We come out together at the beginning and we stay on stage together the whole night. These guys can play. I love it.

Your CD “Days Like These” is a pretty eclectic mix of music that goes from blues to jazz, folk and rock. Is that reflected in your concerts? Yeah. It is. And I think that’s just a direct reflection of the acting career, to go from “Newsroom” to “Dumb and Dumber To.” Even the plays I write are wildly comedic and then dark as hell. I just enjoy the range of that and it comes directly from the acting career. I thought we were supposed to go from A to Z. That’s what I was taught in New York when I was coming up.

Your song “California” — a sweet, acoustic tune — is a favorite. Where did it come from? I just couldn’t deal with California as a young actor. When I moved to Michigan, they said, “You gotta have a meeting with this director or you’re not going to get the part, which meant I had to pay for the plane to fly out rent a car and do the meeting. I would do this. I would leave Detroit at 9 in the morning. I’d land at noon, LA time, rent the car and do the meeting at 3. I’d hang around at Tower Records or a guitar shop and take the red eye home. I never stayed. I never stayed. It was a problem. I needed therapy. Finally, if I wanted the career to continue, I had to make peace with California. That’s what the song is about.

Though you’ve made dozens of movies, “Gettysburg’s” Joshua Chamberlain was a Mainer. Is it true that playing him was your favorite role? There’s no favorite, but to get the chance to portray Chamberlain, to kind of put forward, as a movie can do, one of the great unsung American heroes, was an honor. Chamberlain will certainly be in my top five of roles I got to do. That speech to the guys on Little Round Top, just from an acting standpoint, was top because we had 300 re-enactors — not extras, re-enactors — on that hill. And a lot of those guys were from Maine. (Many had requested to join Chamberlain’s famed 20th Maine for the movie.) For me, to walk in front of them and deliver that speech, you’re delivering that speech initially to 300 Siskel and Eberts. Talk about facing your critics. They seemed to say, “Let’s see if we’ve got a Chamberlain or is this just another Hollywood guy whose just going to do his bag of tricks.” And by the end of his speech, they were ready to go with me. They had their Chamberlain. For me it was inspiring because there was a lot of “Way to be!” “Oh my God!” and “It was like being transported!” That was hugely beneficial to me because then we went on and shot the rest of the Chamberlain stuff.

HBO’s “Newsroom,” which ended its three-year run in December, was written by one of Hollywood’s best known writers, Aaron Sorkin (“The West Wing” and “Moneyball”). He’s known for whip-smart, sharp-tongued characters. What’s it like speaking Sorkin dialogue? Aaron is so smart and he writes smart and he writes smart people. The trick to performing him is knowing his characters are smart people who think smart, and if it’s on their mind it’s out of their mouth. There’s no time for behavior and that kind of pause, pause before you say the line. They’re that smart. Whether its Will McAvoy (“The Newsroom”) or Harry Dunne, you try to think like they do. And with Aaron’s stuff, they think smart. So out it comes quickly. The thing with Aaron, too, is that it’s like Broadway. You don’t change a word. You don’t ad-lib. You don’t stutter. Your job is to say exactly what he wrote but make it your own.

And you went right from “Newsroom” to “Dumb and Dumber To.” The process is the same. With Dumb and Dumber, I memorized it word for word and then prepared for whatever (Directors Peter and Bobby Farrelly) and Jim (Carrey) decided to add to it. Occasionally I’d add stuff.

As a songwriter and playwright, Daniels said he has enormous respect for the writer in movies, too. There’s a guy who sat alone in a room and wrote this thing. Why don’t you pay him the respect and memorize it word for word. If you want to add something after that, great. I’ve worked with actors who didn’t quite memorize because they were going to do their own thing with it anyway. And that’s like “OK. You’re lazy”

Sorkin has written a much-publicized screenplay of Walter Isaacson’s best-selling biography “Steve Jobs.” Is there any truth to this discussion that you may be playing the man who unseated Jobs at Apple in 1985, John Sculley? We’re putting together the possibility of doing that. We’ll see. I’m hopeful. I’d like to be involved in it. Yeah.