Rise to Fame
The grumpy bartender on New Girl wasn't the role anyone expected to define a career. Jake Johnson had spent years doing indie films nobody saw, until creator Liz Meriwether spotted him in Paper Heart and pushed for him when casting the show. A chemistry read with Zooey Deschanel reportedly sealed it. What he thought was a short-term gig turned into seven seasons, and Nick Miller became one of the more beloved sitcom characters of the 2010s. He didn't play it cool. He played it genuine, which turned out to be the same thing.
In the Spotlight
The Spider-Verse franchise gave him his second career dimension. Voicing a schlubby, divorced Peter Parker in Into the Spider-Verse (2018) was a different kind of role, and it stuck hard enough that he reprised it in Across the Spider-Verse (2023) and is locked in for Beyond the Spider-Verse. His directorial debut, Self Reliance (2024), hit Hulu and earned mixed reviews (73% on Rotten Tomatoes), but it proved he's willing to build something of his own rather than wait for the next network offer.
Side Notes
He has said he read Emerson's Self Reliance as a teenager, dropped out of school for a year, and eventually landed at NYU Tisch's Dramatic Writing program through his playwriting. His 2024 directorial debut borrows the title, which is either a nice full-circle moment or just what happens when you make a movie about the essay that derailed your adolescence. He came up through Second City and the Upright Citizens Brigade before moving to L.A., and his best performances still land like improv that accidentally became a character.