David Strathairn — American Actor born on January 26, 1949,

David Russell Strathairn is an American actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor for portraying journalist Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck. He is recognized for his role as CIA Deputy Director Noah Vosen in the 2007 film The Bourne Ultimatum, a role he reprised in 2012's The Bourne Legacy. He played a prominent role as Dr. Lee Rosen on the Syfy series Alphas from 2011 to 2012 and played Secretary of State William Henry Seward in Steven Spielberg's Lincoln... (wikipedia)

You work enough with someone and you develop a shorthand. You know how he likes to work through the day and he knows where you're vulnerable and where your weaknesses and strengths are, so it makes for a good team, a team that knows who's over there behind your back.
I think George just nailed the whole thing, the whole time period, the whole look and feel of what that newsroom was like. I did a lot of research for the role and believe me, it's all pretty genuine, down to the very last cigarette butt.
If it's a role like this one, an actual live person, a legend, there's lots of material laid out.
When you're creating a character out of nothing, you have to make all the guesses as to how they walk, how they talk, how they think. It was all there on the table for us to pick and choose for Murrow.
In order to crash the party and be a clown with your own skit, you had to be there for quite a while.