‘Alaska Daily’: Why Stanley Looks Familiar
ABC‘s newest drama series, Alaska Daily, has captured the attention of audiences worldwide. Hilary Swank stars as Eileen Fitzgerald, a “canceled” journalist who seeks redemption in Anchorage, Alaska, after her former boss, Stanley Cornik, offers her a job at the local newspaper. But who plays Stanley in Alaska Daily?
Jeff Perry plays Stanley in ‘Alaska Daily’
Alaska Daily centers around Eileen Fitzgerald, played by Hilary Swank, who publishes a story outing the next Secretary of Defense for allegedly selling weapons to enemies. But when her source turns out to be a dud, Eileen is shunned and leaves her job at The Vanguard.
Flash-forward four months later, Eileen is working on a novel about the Secretary of Defense. Her former boss Stanley Cornik, played by Jeff Perry, contacts her and offers her a job in the Alaska Daily pilot. After some back-and-forth, she accepts and travels to Anchorage, Alaska. There, she works on a story about missing and murdered indigenous women for Stanley’s newspaper, The Daily Alaskan.
The Alaska Daily cast rounds out with Matt Malloy as Bob Young, Meredith Holzman as Claire Muncy, Grace Dove as Rosalind “Roz” Friendly, Pablo Castelblanco as Gabriel Martin, Ami Park as Jieun Park, and Craig Frank as Austin Greene.
What other projects has Jeff Perry been in?
Fans might recognize Stanley in Alaska Daily because Jeff Perry appeared in a few other popular ABC dramas — My So-Called Life, Grey’s Anatomy, and Scandal.
Perry played Richard Katimski, an English teacher, in My So-Called Life for a few episodes. He frequently starred as Thatcher Grey, Meredith’s father, in Grey’s Anatomy. But Perry is probably most recognizable from his role as Cyrus Beene, the former White House Chief of Staff and eventual Vice President, in Scandal. He was a series regular throughout the show’s seven seasons.
Most recently, Perry played Lou in Inventing Anna on Netflix.
Is ‘Alaska Daily’ based on a true story?
Alaska Daily is inspired by a series of articles titled “Lawless” that the Anchorage Daily News published in 2019. These articles detailed the increasing number of missing and murdered indigenous women in Alaska. And they exposed the police for not thoroughly investigating these crimes.
Although Alaska Daily is based on a true story, none of the characters, including Stanley, are based on real-life journalists.
Hilary Swank told Newsweek, “When [Alaska Daily creator Tom McCarthy] said that this was based on a story called ‘Lawless,’ I read the article. I knew about the missing, murdered indigenous women. I knew about that. But the story was just [shocking].”
She added, “To me, I knew about that. And yet so many people don’t know about it, and it’s happening right now, right this second. And no one’s doing anything about it. It is horrific, and something needs to be done. So, yes, that was a big part of me being in the show. And then there’s other things that the article tackles that I had no idea about. And it just blew my mind.”
New episodes of Alaska Daily air Thursdays at 10 p.m. ET on ABC.
