Jake Johnson

Early life and education

Johnson was born in Evanston, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago, the son of Eve Johnson, an artist who made stained glass windows, and Ken Weinberger, who owned a car dealership. He was named after his maternal uncle, Mark Johnson, who died at the age of 26 in a motorcycle accident in 1977, a year before Jake was born. Jake's father is from an Ashkenazi Jewish family, while his mother's ancestry is English, Irish, and Polish Catholic. His parents divorced when he was two, and he and his older siblings, brother Dan and sister Rachel, were raised by his single mother. Johnson then took his mother's last name during high school. Johnson has stated that since his 20s, his father has resurfaced and now they are close.

Career

Johnson grew up a fan of the Second City improv troupe, which showed off the talents of actors such as John Belushi, Tina Fey and Chris Farley. He graduated from New Trier High School in Winnetka and started his post-secondary education at the University of Iowa. While in Iowa City, he wrote a play, which wound up earning him admission to the Dramatic Writing Department at NYU's prestigious Tisch School of the Arts, followed by the 2002 John Golden Playwriting Prize and the Sloan Fellowship for Screenwriting. The New York City off-Broadway group, The Ensemble Studio Theater, produced his play Cousins.

While in New York, Johnson started the sketch comedy troupe The Midwesterners, modeling their material and style after HBO's sketch comedy Mr. Show with Bob and David. After moving to Los Angeles, Johnson supported himself as a waiter and a production assistant, also scoring a series of bit feature and guest TV roles. In 2007, he landed a more regular gig with the TBS mini-show Derek and Simon: The Show, produced by Bob Odenkirk.

In 2009, he appeared in the mockumentary Paper Heart. In 2010, Johnson was cast in a small role in the Russell Brand comedy, Get Him to the Greek. He played Uma Thurman's character's brother in the romantic comedy Ceremony, and as a buddy of Ashton Kutcher's character in No Strings Attached. In 2011, he played Jesus in A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas. In 2012, he appeared in the film version of 21 Jump Street, which starred Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum. Johnson made an appearance at the 2012 Sundance Festival as one of the leads in Safety Not Guaranteed.

Since 2011, Johnson has been starring as Nick Miller alongside Zooey Deschanel on New Girl. In 2013, he appeared in the music video for "Rouse Yourself", a song by indie-soul band JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound alongside his Safety Not Guaranteed co-star Aubrey Plaza. He is also starring (as a fictional version of himself) in a series of Dodge Dart commercials with Craig Robinson. In 2015, he played park informatician Lowery in Jurassic World.

Drunk History

The web series Drunk History, which led to the 2013 TV series Drunk History, was inspired by a 2007 conversation that Johnson had with series creator Derek Waters. Johnson, while drunk, was trying to describe the story of Otis Redding's death to Waters, and Waters was inspired to build a series around history narrated by drunk people. Johnson later appeared in the first episode of the web series (as Aaron Burr), as well as episode 8 of the TV series' first season (as William B. Travis) and episode 9 of the series' third season (as Boris Spassky).