Jake Johnson shares stories from the set of 'New Girl' and what his life is like since the series finale
Jake Johnson knows fans think he's a lot like Nick Miller, the character he helped bring to life for seven years on the hit Fox show, "New Girl."
But, for the record, he'd like to clarify that it's actually the other way around.
"Somebody on Twitter said, 'You even dance like Nick Miller.' And what I wanted to write back but didn't was, 'No! That fool dances like me!'" Johnson said in an interview on ABC News' "Popcorn With Peter Travers." "A lot of Nick you'll see in every character I do that I'm allowed to improvise and bring things, too."
Since the show's series finale, Johnson has gone on to star in the film "Tag," which tells the story of a group of adult friends who play a competitive game of tag.
Johnson said he related to the real-life story of the friends who kept the game going to keep in touch with each other as they grew older and had different life experiences. But what got him to sign onto the film was his co-stars.
"What attracted to me about it was the cast. Working on 'New Girl,' I like working with an ensemble... and doing a lot of these group scenes," he said.
In a conversation with Peter Travers, Johnson shared stories from the set of "New Girl" and what is life is like now since the series finale.
1. He wasn't as good at dancing as the rest of his "New Girl" co-stars
Johnson recalled a shoot where he had to learn dance choreography and tried to hide in the background with the extras.
"Zooey Deschanel loves music, loves musical theater, loves the show of it. 'New Girl' was her show, so that first season when we were doing press, one of her friends said, 'let's do a music video that's interactive... where people can go in different rooms and pick a cast member and tell them what to do,'" Johnson said. "And Zooey was like, 'Oh, yes baby.' And Max [Greenfield] and Lamorne [Morris] were like, 'Sure, whatever's for Fox.'"
"But I knew this is a danger zone for me. This isn't where I live," he recalled. "So we had a dance instructor teaching us dances. Now, this my nightmare. This is not what I like. I'm not good at it."
Johnson said that unlike him, Greenfield and Morris were much better dancers, and Deschanel was confident in her skills.
"I keep saying, 'I'm confident. I'm confident.' The dance starts. I'm hiding behind extras in the background as much as I can, and it's fine. No one's calling me out. They then say, 'Let's watch playback,'" Johnson said. "And as they're doing playback, Max Greenfield goes, 'Oh my god, look at Jake!' And they played it back, and it was just a terrible life moment. Everybody's doing like the perfect shoulder things, and I hadn't paid any attention to the teacher."
2. Nick Miller is like him because he put some of his own personality into the character
"Liz Meriweather, our creator, one part of her brilliance is that apart from being a good writer is that she wants parts of her actors," Johnson said of the show. "So she'll say like, 'But what do you think? Open this up. Improvise that.' So a lot of Nick you'll see in every character I do that I'm allowed to improvise and bring things, too."
Because of this, Johnson said what he'll miss most about the show is getting to become the characters with his co-stars.
"What I'll really miss from that show -- and it's genuinely hard -- is how fun it was working with those other actors as these characters," he said. "So Max Greenfield and I have a very fun friendship in real life, but we tap into Nick and Schmidt when we do our bits because we get to. We both love those characters and we both love that tone."
3. Speaking of Nick and Schmidt, Johnson said that he believes the two had a love story
Johnson said that if you analyzed the number of scenes he had saying sweet things about a character and Nick's relationship with the character, you would find that he did this more with Greenfield about Nick's relationship with Schmidt than with Deschanel and Nick's relationship with Jess.
"There's so much of like Max and I sitting on a couch at like 9 p.m. shooting where we're reading the scene and I go, 'I tell him he's like a husband to me?'" Johnson said. "Seems pretty intimate to tell another man, considering last weekend we told each other we loved each other when we were combing each other's hair."
In fact, Johnson said he might have shared more romantic scenes with Greenfield than he has with any other actor.
"I've been lucky enough to have a lot of romantic leads in movies and indies and you do form a different kind of connection when you do that together as actors," he said. "Max, I feel, is like at the top of my list."
One of the last scenes Johnson shot was a flashback with Greenfield as Fat Schmidt for the series finale. The take that made it into the episode included an improv bit they'd been doing while shooting similar scenes through the years together.
Those takes never usually made it into the show. But for this scene in the series finale, Meriweather allowed their funny take to make it into the episode.
"The thing that I thought was really sweet was they actually put that in. So Liz, who always has the final say chose to put that in the finale, so for me, I felt like, 'Oh, that was seven years of enjoyment in my life that I'm glad it crossed over,'" Johnson said.
4. Johnson says he became famous for his various funny facial expressions because he didn't know what to do while his co-stars were saying their lines
In the show's earlier episodes, Johnson said the writers hadn't figured out his character yet, which is why he didn't have many jokes.
"Zooey and Liz figured out Jess. Max Greenfield came out of the box ready to go as Schmidt. He was Schmidt day one. Second one. Everybody knew what was funny about him. And Lamorne and I were these two guys from Chicago who were like being polite about everything," Johnson explained.
"So I would be in a scene with Zooey, who would have a monologue. And my character, it said, 'Nick Miller' and I'd go, 'What, question mark.' Then, I would turn, and Max would give a monologue," he said. "Well, they still put a camera on me for all that equal time. So it'd start and I'd go this [nods head] and before you know it, I'm there for four hours."
Since Johnson didn't have any lines, he would instead be on camera making different facial expressions.
"Then you have one camera operator who laughs and goes, 'What are you doing?!' Like, 'I don't know! The camera's on her! I'm acting!'" he said.
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5. One of the final scenes where he felt the most sadness while shooting was Nick and Jess' wedding
"Zooey and I really did care about the Nick and Jess story. We would, you know, text and call each other and have discussions about how we wanted to play a moment before we would get on set and get directed," Johnson revealed.
Johnson said he knew the wedding was something the show had been building to for a long time and that he and Deschanel really valued their storyline.
"The reality of the situation did hit me for a moment," he said. "I did realize very quickly, 'Oh this is all ending in less than eight days. But this is a goodbye, even though it's a wedding for the characters. This is our goodbye to each other. We've all been building to this and we got it.'"
6. Now that the show's over, Johnson said he wants to pursue his passion projects
"I'm taking 12 months and I'm working on passion projects," Johnson said. "I would be lying to myself if I didn't at least try to do the things that I deeply care about and feel passionate about, which go back to those weirdo ideas I had when I was 19 and 20 years old and first starting."
So what are some of those projects?
"I'm pairing up with talented people and I'm creating ideas, you know, like Joe Swanberg movies and these passionate indies and these smaller things that I want to find streaming homes for, that I just want to spend a little bit of time and remember why I got into this whole thing as the next chapter of my life begins," he said.
Watch the full interview with Jake Johnson on ABC News' "Popcorn With Peter Travers" in the video above.
