A Quote by Jake M. Johnson

I was in a two-person show [with Oliver Ralli] called the Midwesterners where we wrote all of our own stuff and we traveled the country with it. That's what eventually led me to L.A.
I am a man who used to wear the tights. We traveled the country doing two Shakespeare plays for bored college students for about a year. I think I'd probably still be doing it now if I hadn't just randomly decided to go to a sketch group audition. That led to doing improv, which led to the Daily Show. But it was fun while it lasted.
I knew I wanted to be an actor for a long time, but I was based out of Chicago and then I went to New York and I did 'The Upright Citizens Brigade' out there. I had a two-man show with a guy named Oliver Ralli who's now in the band Pass Kontrol, which is a big band out of New York.
'A Fair Maiden' existed in notes and sketches for perhaps a year. When I traveled, I would take along with me my folder of notes - 'ideas for stories.' Eventually, I began to write it and wrote it fairly swiftly - in perhaps two months of fairly intense writing and rewriting. Most of my time writing is really re-writing.
A man of my acquaintance once wrote a poem called "The Road Less Traveled", describing a journey he took through the woods along a path most travelers never used. The poet found that the road less traveled was peaceful but quite lonely, and he was probably a bit nervous as he went along, because if anything happened on the road less traveled, the other travelers would be on the road more frequently traveled and so couldn't hear him as he cried for help. Sure enough, that poet is dead.
I started out in comedy gigging and scraping a living together, and eventually worked up to doing shows at the Comedy Store in London in 1979. That led on to me presenting a show in the early days of Channel 4 called 'Whatever You Want,' which had live music and sketches.
I remember, in middle school, we did the musical 'Oliver.' I loved the movie, and I always wanted to play Oliver. It might not have been stated, but the boys auditioned for Oliver, and the girls auditioned for Nancy. But we also did a play called 'Li'l Abner,' and I was really excited that they let me put on a suit and a fake mustache.
It's such a shame that we know so little about our own country, that we can't find it in our hearts to love our own kind. Instead we admire those who show our country disrespect and betray its people.
I have traveled to Florida, I have traveled to Georgia, I have traveled to California, you and I both know that there are millions of undocumented workers that work hard, sweat soil every day to put the food we eat on our table. That's not a myth, that's a reality. Why don't we let them come with visas to this country so that then we don't have people using that border.
My self-publishing adventure led to my work being picked up by a traditional publisher and eventually hitting the bestseller lists. That led to two more bestselling novels.
With my two brothers, Jean-Marie and Joel, I wrote a two-page story and wanted to make some kind of movie. We met a French production company, called Why Not?, and the first name we put on the list was Ken Loach. It was a dream for all of us. So, we tried and we met Ken and Paul Laverty, his writer, and they read the two pages and were inspired by that to do something. Paul had the freedom to do his own story - and he wrote his own story, which is better than the one we'd written.
When I was younger, I definitely had more of a dream, as they say on 'American Idol,' that I would have my own show. I always thought that that was something that would happen, that eventually I would just get my own show because anyone who wants their own show should get their own show.
When I started trying to become a director, I started shooting low budget short films, 50-dollar music videos, making my own stuff. That eventually led to commercials.
I'd seen the Led Zeppelin reunion and I've never been such a huge Led Zeppelin fan as much as the Doors or Beatles. I went and saw the reunion and watching them play "Stairway to Heaven," it was very breathtaking for one reason mostly. I can imagine these two guys looking at each other, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page. Not to compare us to Led Zeppelin, but I did miss the fact that I could look over at the guy, Twiggy Ramirez, that wrote "The Beautiful People" and "Dope Show." Emotionally, it's taken a long time to repair that.
Going to UCLA, as far as I'm concerned, afforded me two things. One was the advantage of meeting friends and getting to know a group of guys I hung out with, was chummy with. All of us eventually had success with film. Making films, cutting our own little movies together, 3 in the morning going out and shooting stuff, finding gels that people had thrown away, making our own lights. It was like a frat house for film geeks, the Pad O' Guys. That's what being at UCLA afforded me.
I didn't follow big box office ideas. That eventually led me to witches. It's led me to find interesting roles.
Our main house is in the country, all our stuff is in the country, and that's home, though the boys, who are four, two and one, are in school in London during the week.
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