“Minx” Star Jake Johnson Doesn’t Mind If Fans Call Him Nick Miller Forever

This interview was carried out earlier than the SAG-AFTRA strike started on July 14.

Jake Johnson is a TV man. You most likely know him greatest from his days starring as Nick Miller in seven seasons of “New Girl,” however since 2022, he is additionally starred as Doug Renetti in “Minx.” In the collection, he clashes with Ophelia Lovibond’s Joyce concerning the working of their joint journal, Minx, which is half feminist essays and half pornography. And simply FYI: for those who run into Johnson and name him one in every of his characters’ names, he’ll by no means get upset.

“I like TV greater than films,” Johnson tells POPSUGAR. “A number of my technology of actors, once we all got here up, all people was an actual snob about TV, and all people solely needed films. So I pretended to be cool too and say, like, ‘Dude, every part is movie.'”

“But rising up, every part to me was TV,” he provides. “It was ‘Roseanne.’ It was ‘The Wonder Years.’ It was watching the present, week after week, 12 months after 12 months, and feeling like they’re members of your loved ones and people actors are these folks.”

On social media, Johnson says, he usually will get messages from followers who “actually join” with “New Girl” in the identical method. “They actually imagine we dwell in that loft and that they might go to that location and see us,” he explains. “And that is the magic of TV. That’s what I beloved about it as a fan. And to be a part of one thing that has performed that looks like a achievement to the boyhood dream I had of being on this enterprise.”

That’s additionally why he’ll proceed to cherish “New Girl”‘s legacy. “I’ll at all times like it,” he says. “I’ll at all times be related. When I’m 75 years previous — if I make it that lengthy — and folks say, ‘Do you get irritated when folks name you Nick Miller?’ No! I obtained into this enterprise to be on a present like that. I hope it occurs to ‘Minx.’ I hope we get to make the present for years and folks really feel like these characters are actual. And if I’m fortunate, I’ll do just a few films in between, after which I hope it occurs once more.”

“Minx” hasn’t been renewed for a 3rd season (but), however watching the collection, it is simple to think about that it will run for a very long time, thanks partly to the basic conflict of personalities Doug and Joyce deliver to the desk within the office comedy. Lovibond says that scenes the place the 2 characters conflict are her “favourite” ones to movie. Their “central dichotomy,” she tells POPSUGAR, is the “anchor” of the present. “The friction within the present comes from that, from them knocking heads,” she explains.

Johnson says of their characters’ dynamic, “They’re each actually assured, however the place they’re weak is the place the opposite one is robust. And they each know that. Doug is aware of that Joyce has issues within her mind that he does not have, and that he needs.” In different phrases, Doug is aware of Joyce makes him higher, even when he drives him nuts. As Johnson places it: “You’re anchored to anyone that you do not wish to be anchored to, however it’s essential be.”

And, after all, “Minx” wraps all of it in a stunning and enjoyable ’70s-throwback setting. Lovibond says that although Minx journal is faux, her mother learn an identical feminist girls’s magazine, “Spare Rib,” within the UK through the ’70s, so she’ll usually ship her mother pictures of her costumes on set. “I had a bit of suede waistcoat and a skirt with these cream leather-based boots,” Loviband says. “She goes, ‘I had an outfit similar to that,’ and she or he fished out [a photo] and confirmed it to me and it was nearly similar. I felt like I used to be myself within the ’70s.”

The “Minx” season two finale premieres Friday, Sept. 8, on Starz.