Jake Johnson Talks ‘Self-Reliant’ Hollywood’s New Normal – Deadline

For better or worse, Jake Johnson knows who he is.

He says that as a “45-year-old white man,” he knows that directing opportunities on the big screen won’t come along often. “As far as directing, I’m not stopping there,” Johnson tells Deadline. “I’ve been on TV for a very long time. I’m not a new, young, hot talent from Sundance with a scarf where you go, ‘That’s a nice short, let’s see what he’s got.'” “The city has seen what I’m doing.”

So when the opportunity came for the actor to make his directorial debut self-reliancea comedy thriller co-starring Anna Kendrick that premiered at SXSW last year, he knew he would take all the “tones and ideas” that had been occupying space in his mind for years and package them into one film.

Debuting on Hulu today, after a one-night theatrical syndication via Neon, the film stars Johnson as Tommy, an ordinary Angeleno who is swept into an unexpected adventure when he is offered $1 million to star in a dark web reality series. Who sees him running away from people to kill him. Early in the process, he thinks he’s found the perfect loophole—they can only attack when he’s alone—but his problem is that none of his friends or family believe the game is real.

Johnson’s feature, inspired by Japanese reality television, was also largely influenced by the Covid pandemic and its reinforcement of the need for human connection, as well as the polarized political climate in which many seem to have come to live their own separate realities. . “I have some good old friends who are really crazy, who have some theories where I say, ‘You’re on another planet, buddy,’” Johnson laughs. “Everyone’s theories seem to have proof on the Internet.”

As someone who likes to listen to both sides of an argument, Johnson often finds himself going down the rabbit hole to research the theories involved – and in doing so, he is surprised to find that he understands how to draw certain conclusions. This got him thinking, “Wow, if everyone’s truth is true, then no one’s truth can be true. This is brutal.”

While the title self-reliance It refers to Tommy’s need to rely first and foremost on himself amidst his dangerous and strange journey, and is also a reference to the famous Transcendentalist essay by philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, which Johnson read at the age of 15, when he suddenly decided to quit school for her. year.

“It was around that time that I started reading on my own for fun, and this transcendent movement, I kind of found it because I was alone a lot,” says the actor and filmmaker. “What I loved about that, and what I love about this movie is, if you really believe you’re right about something, it’s okay if no one believes you. I think there’s something that’s really important to me at this time, where there’s a lot of groupthink in Every team, not much individual thinking, and when that appears, it gets into trouble from all sides.

But while self-reliance The film certainly has a lot on its mind, and Johnson makes sure to stress that the film should not be misunderstood as an educational tool. Indeed, for this artist who misses a time when Hollywood offered “the great escapism,” the intent was to foster a very different kind of experience. Having become a darling of the “John Candies of the world,” who offered a break from real-world problems through their work, his hope was simply that the film would entertain and distract viewers enough to keep them off their phones over the course of the show. Of which 85 minutes.

When reflecting on the experience of making this film, Johnson points out that he’s not a natural director — or a natural actor, for that matter. “I feel like if I were an athlete, I would be a utility player. I wouldn’t have a real attitude, for better or worse,” he says.

However, if Johnson part ways with the beloved Fox sitcom New girlwho maintains an avid fan base even after being off the air for six years, as well as a number of independent artists, what many may not know about the creator is that he is as much a writer as he is an actor, and has been creating his own physical works and creating his own opportunities since the beginning of his career.

For the Illinois native, who began writing plays during his time at the University of Iowa, writing has been “the great escape” since he was 16 years old. (Over the years, he has seen five of his scripts produced, although he jokes that the amount he has written that has not been produced is “really shameful.”) Johnson honed his unique sense of comedic timing, as an actor, over many years on stage sketching Comedy, his ambition is to look at a career in entertainment as just having a “place at the Hollywood table” for a moment and seeing how long he can last that moment. “I know I’m not the most handsome guy. I know I’m not the most talented guy. I know I’m not the obvious choice,” he says. “I would never take steroids and get really strong.”

While in college, Johnson decided he wanted to become a “really great playwright” like David Mamet, seeing all of his work coming out as:American buffalothree people in one room” — “really free, weird ideas with no structure.” In addition to the Murray brothers and Belushi in Chicago, another big influence on him was Owen Wilson — and not just because they both had “funky noses,” Johnson jokes. While he expressed his awe of the actor’s performance in the first film by director Wes Anderson Rock bottlet, which he found admirably “funny and sad and strange,” and what he admired most was Wilson’s partnership with Anderson as a writer, which culminated in an Academy Award nomination for Royal Tenenbaum. He says this is the kind of collaboration he wanted to be a part of.

While continuing to hone his writing at New York University, Johnson drilled the three-element structure into his brain, although as a dyslexic person with a “disorganized” brain, he strongly resisted the lesson. In terms of the stories he tells, he is not interested in in-depth backstory, but rather in character development and growth. What he likes about movies are the “down on his luck” character, the often hilariously bizarre tone, and the world that reflects a middle-class “feeling about America.” Regarding photography, he adds: “I love living things. I love the little houses that look like the north side of Chicago. I love families. “I love love stories.”

He doesn’t care about “rich people,” he continues, or “really clean people. So there are some stories I won’t tell because I don’t want to think about them while I’m writing. I don’t want to be on set. I don’t want DC to do that.”

As someone who likes to go to the same restaurants and eat the same meals, and who often strays from the mainstream in favor of working on passion projects, Johnson admits to being “very narrow” in his interests. “Most of the movies and TV shows I watch, I can’t personally care about them. A lot of what Hollywood really celebrates, I’ve always felt from the outside,” he admits. “It’s always like: What do we do? What is this? Why is everyone pretending this is so good?

However, you can rest assured that any project Johnson takes on will be truly important to him. His instinct to stay within his somewhat narrow lane—doing what he loves, what he’s good at—derives from a theory Howard Stern heard years ago. “If people like you for something, don’t stop until they stop. If there’s a tune that people like, I don’t want to say, ‘If you like me.’ New girlWait until you see me as a serial killer. “I want to keep changing the game a little bit, and for me, if that’s the premise that works for you, well, let me see if I can move it a little bit to the right, a little bit to the left. Let me see if I can keep massaging this, as long as I enjoy it and the audience enjoys it.

For Johnson, this was one of his most notable achievements self-reliance He was returning among a group of major comedic talent, which also included the likes of Natalie Morales, Mary Holland, Emily Hampshire, Christopher Lloyd and Wayne Brady. Seeing him emerge from this group is reminiscent of the ensemble comedy sensibility that the likes of Judd Apatow and Nicholas Stoller embraced from the late ’90s onward, in modern classics like I knocked And Forget about Sarah Marshallwhich you rarely find on the big screen anymore.

Johnson marvels at the fact that even if comedies are made, when they’re not really considered “theatrical,” the days of making them with great comedic talent seem to be over. “There are some big movies, like the big comedies now, that they try to put big stars in to make sure they’re successful, where you get a professional wrestler, or someone who could be the president, or you get LeBron James.” reflects. “Go, what happened to comedians? What about 30-year-old Eugene Levy and Catherine O’Hara? Who are these guys?”

The cinematic landscape has certainly changed a lot since the days of little gems like Johnson starring Drinking buddies, Safety is not guaranteed And Drilling for fireIt can attract a decent audience in theatres. Instead of appearing on a talk show, Johnson argues that “word of mouth, the trailer, the artwork you like” can be more determining factors today in setting the stage. He believes the difference between Hollywood today and that of a decade ago is that there is now so much content available that it is more difficult to find great independent projects. “There was a lot less stuff going on, and so if you make a movie like that Drinking buddiesWe went to a festival and it did well, and then all of a sudden, it started going viral and everyone in Hollywood seemed to see it. “This rarely happens anymore,” he says. “Now, you need to offer 1%. Like, everyone has seen it The bear.“

Rather than fear this new normal, Johnson is at peace with the fact that interesting work will always be done, even if it’s hard to locate amidst the current chaos of the entertainment ecosystem. “What I find exciting about this day and age is that you find niche audiences,” he says. “It’s not old Hollywood where there are four channels and 10 movies. There are 150,000 channels…but the audience finds what they want to find.”

Even if he enjoyed trying it self-relianceJohnson says he’s “kind of done” directing features for now. He’s open to helming commercials or a pilot, though he says he would “never” direct a major studio film given the “judo” needed to navigate the feedback process. He admits that he has put himself in an unusual and somewhat “difficult” position, given the doors he has closed in his filmmaking career, and his tendency not to work as a “paid actor”, despite his skills in both fields. However, he continues to create his own fun opportunities, including… We are here to helpa warm and quirky advice podcast hosted by comedian Gareth Reynolds, has done well since its launch in August.

The good news for Johnson is the fact that no matter what opportunities come or don’t come, he is fortunate to have some lucrative projects in his rearview mirror, which gives him the leverage to be selective. “I’m in a place where if those things didn’t happen, I wouldn’t chase them,” he says. “The spotlight doesn’t mean much. It doesn’t do me justice.”

Johnson also “never cared about awards, or red carpets, or that feeling,” even if he respected those who did. “So for me moving forward, when you say, ‘How do I plan my career?’ he says, ‘I don’t do that.’ “It has to be people. This has to be the right thing, and it has to work. “If it doesn’t work out, it will be a hell of a ride.”