JAKE
JOHNSON

Nick Miller in New Girl gives many viewers their introduction to Jake Johnson. Across the series’ run from 2011 to 2018, the character has time to become a familiar presence within a group of housemates. Johnson was born in Evanston, Illinois, on 28 May 1978. His later screen work reaches from live-action ensembles to animation, with writing, producing and directing opening further ways to build a story.

FLM.RED’s reading of his comedy starts with the moments when a person tries to sound more certain than he feels. A complaint can turn into an explanation, then become something the speaker regrets saying aloud. The interest lies in the exchange: another performer’s response may reveal the gap between a character’s account of himself and the person everyone else sees. That makes the ensemble important to how the joke works.

The Spider-Verse films use his voice for a version of Spider-Man encountered by Miles Morales. Moving into animation shifts the work away from a visible face and towards rhythm, breath and tone. In FLM.RED’s interpretation, a hesitant instruction can make a mentor feel fallible while still allowing him to help someone else. A heroic role has space for awkwardness, and that awkwardness can become part of the relationship rather than a pause between action scenes.

He directed and starred in Self Reliance, whose premise forces a man in a deadly reality-show game to seek company because being alone makes him vulnerable. That setup gives a concrete situation to a recurring comic problem: needing other people while finding it difficult to ask for help. His other credits include Jurassic World, Minx and producing Digging for Fire. The collection below is limited to films currently linked to him in FLM.RED.