Jake Johnson of ‘New Girl’ Recalls His Failed Writing Career

Jake Johnson is lucky that he got cast on New Girl, FOX’s runaway hit starring Zooey Deschanel as the only female in an apartment of four thirty-somethings. As he recently told the AP, he's not much of a playwright.

Jake Johnson is lucky that he got cast on New Girl, FOX’s runaway hit starring Zooey Deschanel as the only female in an apartment of four thirty-somethings. As he recently told the Associated Press, he’s not much of a playwright.

Following his dream of becoming the next David Mamet, he once wrote “a very serious little one act play about drugs and children” that was picked up by a local theater, who wanted to produce it without his input.

“The director said, ‘We don’t need you around. Just come the night of the show and enjoy your work’ and I thought like, ‘Sounds perfect. If I don’t have to work, I’m not gonna,’” he recalled. “So, my girlfriend and I showed up and the show starts and I’m like, ‘Oh, what a drag.’ So I turn to my girlfriend and I go like, ‘This one sucks’ and she looks at me like, ‘You’re an idiot’ and I realized it was mine. I went home, cried my eyes out and was devastated.”

Johnson also stars in Safety Not Guaranteed, an independent film that co-stars Parks and Recreation’s Aubrey Plaza and opened Friday. New Girl, in which he plays Deschanel’s onscreen love interest Nick Miller, returns in September for its second season.

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