{"id":703161,"date":"2026-07-21T10:12:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-21T10:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/703161\/"},"modified":"2026-07-21T10:12:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-21T10:12:11","slug":"new-girl-was-so-scary-i-had-to-stop-smoking-pot-jake-johnson-on-perseverance-pickleball-and-prince-movies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/703161\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018New Girl was so scary I had to stop smoking pot\u2019: Jake Johnson on perseverance, pickleball and Prince | Movies"},"content":{"rendered":"

You might assume that Jake Johnson would know a little something about pickleball. The actor is starring in The Dink, a sort of spiritual heir to Dodgeball \u2013 it has a Ben Stiller<\/a> cameo \u2013 and he plays Dusty Boyd, a former tennis pro turned plucky pickleball upstart. Presumably Johnson took the gig because he has a deep love of the sport, a fondness for its pockmarked balls and weirdly smooth paddles? \u201cNo experience of it whatsoever,\u201d says the actor, cheerfully, on a video call from Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Yet this underdog of a racket sport, loved by retirees, found him anyway. At the climax of the movie, Dusty must play against an old foe, which meant Johnson had to undertake months of real-life training in pickleball and tennis, so it looked as if he could play. \u201cIt was like WWE. They call it fake wrestling. The outcome is there, but you still have to wrestle. That was probably the most stressful part of the film to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Dink came to Johnson through its writer, Sean Clements, who had taken up the sport. \u201cHe started playing pickleball, and then became friends with this group of older women in Beverly Hills. He\u2019s like, they talk so much shit, and get so competitive, it\u2019s just so funny.\u201d At the time, Johnson was searching for a specific kind of comedy. \u201cI was looking to do something really fun and light, with big comedic set pieces. I wanted to make a movie that feels a little old school, there\u2019s no messaging, it\u2019s not trying to teach people anything.\u201d It was just before the 2024 presidential election in the US. \u201cI knew, however that goes, it\u2019s going to get crazy for our country, and it\u2019s going to be very divisive, and the internet is going to get all mad at each other about everything, and we\u2019re all going to be fighting,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The Dink was born from a desire to escape, if just for a moment. \u201cI thought, if I\u2019m going to make something, I don\u2019t want to throw more wood on to that fire. You could say the world is burning, and you have so much great evidence. But can we just talk about this, for an hour and a half? Because while this is going on, there\u2019s also life.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is no denying that culture has taken on a new intensity in recent years. From Marty Supreme<\/a> to One Battle After Another<\/a>, movies and television are heightened, brittle and usually immensely stressful to watch. \u201cYou go: man, I know everybody is loving this, and it\u2019s winning all the awards, but I can\u2019t watch it. I\u2019m already fucking stressed. Give me a break!\u201d<\/p>\n

The Dink is that break. Dusty is \u201ca goober\u201d, according to Johnson. He works at his father\u2019s country club and remains bitter about the injury that ended his promising tennis career, for which he blames Andy Roddick. When Dusty takes up pickleball, he joins a tough-talking, hard-hitting gang of older women, led by Mary Steenburgen\u2019s Candace, who schools Dusty in sport and life. In a particularly lovely strand, Dusty and Candace develop a rock-solid intergenerational friendship. \u201cI don\u2019t agree with this idea that men and women can\u2019t be friends, and that no matter what, it\u2019s going to be screwed up with sex,\u201d he says. \u201cThat feels so crazy old school and puritan to me.\u201d Steenburgen is a legend of comedy, and Johnson was already a big fan. \u201cParenthood meant a ton to me when I first saw it. So did Step Brothers. I feel about her the way that Dusty feels about Candace. I don\u2019t view her as my older friend. Mary\u2019s my friend. I would hang out with Mary whenever.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018I would hang out with her whenever\u2019 \u2026 Johnson and Mary Steenburgen in The Dink. Photograph: Andrew Cooper\/Courtesy of Apple TV<\/p>\n

Has Johnson seen that other great racket sports movie, the steamy, sweaty, Zendaya-starring Challengers<\/a>? He has not, he says, but he defers to his co-star Aaron Chen\u2019s response: \u201cChen refers to our movie as the sexier Challengers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson started acting in high school, in Chicago. He had dropped out at 15, unsure of the path his life was going to take, but went back to give it one last shot. \u201cI couldn\u2019t crack the code. I just knew that nothing was working. And then I did a play, and I was like, oh, this is great.\u201d It changed the course of his life. \u201cI got credit for the first time from stuffy adults who did not like me,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

What was there to dislike? \u201cI don\u2019t know. Like, if there was a party at someone\u2019s house and somebody found matches, all the parents assumed I brought the matches,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd a lot of the time, I had brought the matches.\u201d Acting funnelled that restless energy into something positive. \u201cI didn\u2019t even realise it could be a real job. I didn\u2019t realise that Cheers, which was my favourite show, was just a bunch of working actors who had a job. Once I started doing the math on it, I thought, I\u2019ve got to go all in. That\u2019s everything for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018He called us by our character names\u2019 \u2026 with Zooey Deschanel and Prince in New Girl. Photograph: Fox Television\/REX\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

He moved to Los Angeles and spent years as a jobbing actor, taking whatever he could, whenever he could. \u201cI call it grinding,\u201d he recalls. \u201cIf a commercial came, I\u2019m taking it. If a co-star [role] comes, I\u2019m taking it.\u201d He appeared in Curb Your Enthusiasm as \u201cMan on Cell Phone\u201d, in Get Him to the Greek as \u201cJazz Man\u201d. He describes Hollywood as \u201ca really long dinner table with a bunch of seats, and the seats keep getting taken out, and then a new phase will come. You just want to stay at the table. At that point, I was just trying to get to the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then came New Girl, the smash-hit sitcom that arrived in his life when he was 33. For seven years, he played the romantic lead, Nick, to Zooey Deschanel\u2019s Jess. \u201cNew Girl was a very scary job, because all of them were really prepared. I had to stop smoking pot, because I was like, oh, these fools know their lines! I got to make some changes and do it fast, or else I\u2019m going to lose this job,\u201d he laughs.<\/p>\n

That job gave him his seat at the table. New Girl was such a smash that after a couple of years, Prince reached out and requested a cameo. He was a huge fan of the show, and would watch it on his tour bus. He appeared in 2014, in a post-Super Bowl episode that was watched by 26.3 million people. On set, Prince referred to Deschanel as Jess, and to Johnson as Nick. \u201cI grew up loving Prince. We would take road trips from Chicago just to listen to his music in Minneapolis. So I thought, I\u2019m going to show this man respect. I\u2019m not going to be weird. And then I heard him say, \u2018I\u2019d like to meet Nick now.\u2019 And he was so great.\u201d They talked for hours about sport and TV. \u201cCheers, Roseanne and New Girl. Those were his three shows.\u201d<\/p>\n

Box-office material \u2026 with Tom Cruise in The Mummy in 2017. Photograph: Collection Christophel\/Alamy<\/p>\n

When New Girl blew up, Johnson\u2019s life was transformed. \u201cI think it exploded my brain for about six months. I spiralled out, and I didn\u2019t know what it all meant. Bill Murray\u2019s got a great quote that when you first get fame, you\u2019ve got about a year where you can kind of be an asshole, and then if you stay an asshole after that, that just means you\u2019re an asshole.\u201d Johnson took a while to adjust to being recognised when out in the world, but it helped that he was already in his 30s. \u201cHonestly, the dust just settled. I thought, this is the life that I wanted.\u201d<\/p>\n

Johnson has been working solidly ever since, with a varied and busy career, ranging from blockbusters including Jurassic World and The Mummy, to the cruelly cancelled adult publishing comedy Minx (\u201cthat one makes me sad\u201d) and, more recently, Apple\u2019s sex-cam murder mystery Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed. He has also reunited with his old Drinking Buddies and Digging for Fire director Joe Swanberg, for The Sun Never Sets, with Dakota Fanning. When we speak, they have just closed a deal to take it to cinemas, with an expected release date later this year.<\/p>\n

double quotation markIf I didn’t have kids I’d have a ponytail and would be doing this interview shirtless<\/p>\n

Still, he says, there\u2019s nothing like having kids to keep you grounded. In 2014, his wife, the artist Erin Payne, gave birth to their twin daughters. \u201cKids changed everything. I think if I didn\u2019t have kids, I\u2019d have a ponytail now, and I wouldn\u2019t be wearing a shirt in this interview, because I wouldn\u2019t believe in shirts,\u201d he laughs. \u201cKids humble you, fast. They are not fans of the old Jakester and his work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not even Spider-Man? (He voiced a version of Spider-Man in two animated films, Into the Spider-Verse and Across the Spider-Verse; a third is in production.) \u201cThey thought Hailee [Steinfeld]\u2019s Spider-Gwen was cool. They thought my character was the most embarrassing, because he just ate pizza and was the old chubby one. The vibe was kind of like, why\u2019d you say yes to that?\u201d He had to tell them that\u2019s not exactly how it works. \u201cI was like, I don\u2019t get to say, \u2018Can I be the coolest one in there?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

It sounds as if Johnson has no problem staying humble. \u201cExactly right,\u201d he says. \u201cUnfortunately!\u201d<\/p>\n

The Dink is out on Apple TV on 24 July<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You might assume that Jake Johnson would know a little something about pickleball. The actor is starring in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":703162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[96,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-703161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-entertainment","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=703161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}