Specs
Who Jake Johnson
Age 34
Accomplishments Stars as Nick Miller on Fox’s New Girl (Tuesdays at 9 p.m.); appears in the upcoming film Drinking Buddies with Olivia Wilde; UFC aficionado
Base Los Angeles
What’s the first information you consume in the morning?
I’ll go through emails. And then I’ll go to the basics—CNN.com and ChicagoSports.com.
You’re pretty active on Twitter. What are your favorite accounts to follow?
For a while, it was Jose Canseco. He’s a true maniac. There was a whole period where he would just say, “I complete you,” and there was no punctuation. Every time, it made me feel weird. What does that even mean?
Are you a TV junkie or on an airtime-restricted diet?
I’m a TV junkie. I watch everything, from Breaking Bad to Storage Wars. The show I’m currently obsessed with is The Ultimate Fighter on FX.
Do you watch New Girl?
I do, yeah, for two reasons: One, just to see what got in—when people are seeing it for the first time, that’s when I’m seeing it—and two, I like to go back and forth on Twitter with fans of the show while they’re watching and ask a basic question like “What’s jumping out?” to see an immediate response. For example, when Nick and Jess kissed, I got over 20,000 followers from that moment to 24 hours after that. The beauty of watching it live on Twitter is you can see what affects people.
Apart from the big Nick and Jess kiss, what’s gotten a lot of fan reaction on Twitter?
There are a lot of people who want Schmidt and Nick to get together. Even if it’s not sexually, there’s a lot of people who will write to me or Max and say, “You guys are cute together, do you like to work with him?” And it’s like, yeah, he’s my friend!
What do you do before you hit the pillow?
I have a backgammon app on my phone, so lately I’ve been playing that. I feel like the computer cheats because I keep losing. So, once I lose a couple games in a row and get frustrated, I turn it off, and I go to bed.
When you’re on set, do you share music, books or apps with your cast mates?
Well, I don’t know if Max Greenfield knows how to read, so he’s not passing around any books. It’s kind of the pot calling the kettle black on that one…I’m not fully convinced I know how to read. We’re not sharing Moby-Dick. Music wise, truth be told, I’m always behind the times on what’s cool, but Zooey will put music on in the hair and makeup trailer.
What’s your biggest digital indulgence?
I’m actually really obsessed with email. Does that count? I was resistant to cell phones and everything—I didn’t get one until I was 24 or 25 years old—and I didn’t want emails or any of that stuff. But I love waking up and seeing a bunch of emails, and without having to get on the phone or talk to somebody, I can have everything lined up.
So email is a pretty recent discovery for you.
In the last few years, actually. The more I talk, the more I’m going to reveal myself to be an idiot with technology.
