Is Jeff Daniels’ Chief Del Harris Based on a Real Police Officer in “American Rust”?

After its first season on Showtime, the exciting drama American Rust is back for a second season on a different channel. The show is about a town in Pennsylvania’s Rust Belt called Buell, which is full of corruption and crime. Del Harris is a former police chief who is now a detective in Pittsburgh. The figure of Del Harris is very important to the story.
People have said that Jeff Daniels’s performance as Chief Del Harris was deep and real. But does Del Harris come from a real police officer, or is he made up? How about we take a better look?

Is Jeff Daniels’ Chief Del Harris Based on a Real Police Officer in “American Rust”?

No, Jeff Daniels’ character Chief Del Harris in the TV series American Rust is not based on a real police officer. The TV show, American Rust, which came out in 2009 and is where Chief Del Harris gets his name, is based on a character with the same name in that book created by author Philipp Meyer.

Chief Del Harris is one of the most important characters in the show. He is a complicated and emotionally conflicted person. Del is being closely watched because of things he did in the past, and his relationship with Grace Poe (Maura Tierney) is already very difficult. Grace wants justice for her son Billy (Alex Neustaedter) who was wrongly jailed. As Del looks into a string of murders that may have something to do with a big fracking business, he gets a new partner: Luna Lauren Velez plays tough Pittsburgh Homicide detective Angela Burgos.

On the TV show American Rust, Jeff Daniels talked about his character, Del Harris, in an interview. The actor has talked about how he feels a link to the character by mentioning his childhood in a small town. Daniels talked about the show’s move from Showtime to Amazon Prime Video‘s Freevee for its second season.

He said that his interest in the character and the story started when he went to a book reading by Philipp Meyer, who wrote the book that the show is based on. Daniels remembered being dragged to the reading in 2004 and being moved by the story of the first book.

After he finished working on “The Newsroom,” Daniels went after making American Rust into a TV show and finally got a deal with Showtime. He talked about how he felt like he knew Del Harris because he grew up in the Midwest. He said that Pittsburgh, where the show is filmed, made him think of Detroit, which shows how similar the two towns are.

Regarding the show’s gritty and real feel, Daniels said he loved how real it was and how the people who worked on it were. He praised the performers from the area, many of whom were from Pittsburgh or Carnegie Mellon University, for how hard they worked at their parts.

Daniels said that he knows people like Del Harris who are quiet at first but have interesting stories to tell when they do. He said that this trait came from being raised in the Midwest, and he used it in his performance of the role. Chief Del Harris may not be based on a real police officer, but his character is very interesting and important to the story of American Rust.

Visit tvacute.com again soon for more American Rust news, previews, and recaps.

Season Finale: American Rust Episode 9 “Denmark” Photos – Preview – Release Date
[Penultimate Episode] American Rust Episode 8 “St. Sebastian” Photos – Preview – Release Date
American Rust Episode 6 “Debt Collection” Photos – Preview – Release Date
Jeff Daniels’s Series American Rust Season 1 Episode Guide, Release Date, Cast & Trailer

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Olivia Wilson
Olivia Wilsonhttps://www.tvacute.com/
Olivia Wilson is the senior news writer for TV Acute. She spends too much money on collectables and is enamored with movies, comics, and television series. She loves binge-watching and can spend hours talking about movies and TV shows. She can immerse herself into a good story no matter the genre or form and only come out from it when she's had her fill. When she's not writing, she's probably cooking or exploring new places. You can follow her daily exploits on Twitter and Facebook.

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