Jeff Daniels On The “Jaws” Trick That Helped Him Nail His Big Moment In “Speed”

Jeff Daniels’ appearance in Speed may be brief, but the actor brought surprising precision to the moment his character realises he’s seconds from being blown to pieces. Speaking on The Rich Eisen Show, Daniels shared a story about how a classic Jaws interview helped him figure out exactly how to play the beat.

Daniels begins his story with a laugh, recalling his first reaction to the script.
“I remember getting the script…and I died on page 22. I died in the elevator shaft. I said, you know, ‘the career’s in trouble but it’s not in that much trouble. I’m gonna pass.’”

His agent urged him to wait.

“And the agent said, ‘Hang on, there’s another draft coming. You die later.’ I said, ‘Okay,’ and it did. It came in about page 80. I’m going, okay well… All right I’ll do it. And Keanu [Reeves] and Sandy Bullock, and it’s like okay, happy to do it.”

Once on set, Daniels found himself in full S.W.A.T. gear — “like 80 pounds of whatever” — attempting to crawl through a small window while looking, in his words, “like Harrison Ford doing it.” The physical awkwardness of the moment wasn’t lost on him: “I’m catching on the window frame and all of that.”

But the real challenge came once he was inside the house. His character, Harry, spots what appears to be a thermostat — only to realise it’s actually a bomb timer counting down to detonation. Daniels needed to convey dawning horror in a single, silent look.

“I finally get in, and the moment in Speed is I’ve got to turn and look at the thermostat and understand that that’s not a thermostat, that’s a timer for a bomb and it’s 3, 2, 1 about to blow up. So I’m going, ‘How am I gonna do that?’ Do I make faces? Do I cry? What do I do?”

That’s when Jaws swam into his mind.

“And I remembered an interview that Roy Scheider did for Jaws. And they asked Roy, ‘That moment, Roy, when you saw the shark…how did you do that?’ And Roy said, ‘Well, I looked down and when I looked over at the shark I made sure my cheek muscles were a little up and then I just dropped them.’ So I said that’s what I’ll do.”

Daniels executed the move — cheek muscles up, then dropped — and before he could even evaluate whether it worked, the crew had their answer.

“So I looked at the thermostat [mimes dropping his cheek muscles]…‘Cut! Lunch.’”

It’s a tiny beat in a film defined by runaway momentum, but Daniels’ anecdote reveals the hidden precision behind even the quickest reaction shots. And it’s a perfect example of how great actors borrow, adapt, and steal from the best — even when the inspiration comes from a shark attack in 1975.

Speed’s legacy and Daniels’ place in it

Speed itself remains one of the defining action thrillers of the 1990s. Directed by Jan de Bont in his feature debut and written by Graham Yost, the film stars Keanu Reeves, Dennis Hopper, and Sandra Bullock, with Joe Morton and Jeff Daniels in key supporting roles. Its high‑concept premise — a city bus rigged to explode if its speed drops below 50 mph — became an instant pop‑culture hook. Reeves’ Jack Traven races to prevent disaster, while Bullock’s Annie is thrust into the chaos as an unlikely hero behind the wheel.

Drawing inspiration from 1985’s Runaway Train and the Japanese thriller The Bullet Train from 1975, Speed premiered in June 1994 and became a global sensation. Critics praised its relentless pacing, practical stunt work, and charismatic performances, helping it earn around $350 million worldwide on a modest $30–37 million budget. It went on to win Best Sound at the Academy Awards and Best Sound and Best Editing at the BAFTAs, cementing its status as one of the decade’s most technically impressive action films.

A sequel, Speed 2: Cruise Control, followed in 1997, but without Reeves — and without the original film’s tight, propulsive concept — it was widely panned. Daniels’ contribution to the first film, however, remains part of what made Speed work so well: a cast fully committed to selling every moment, even the ones that last only a few seconds.

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