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Jake Johnson and 50 things from his acting life.
1. Jake Mark Johnson was born as Mark Jake Weinberger.
2. He is actor and comedian, most known for playing Nick Miller in the Fox comedy series New Girl opposite Zooey Deschanel.
3. Has received a Teen Choice Award nomination for playing Nick Miller.
4. His first starring role in a feature film was Drinking Buddies.
5. Was born in Evanston, Illinois, a northern suburb of Chicago.
6. He is to Eve Johnson, an artist who made stained glass windows.
7. His father is Ken Weinberger, who owned a car dealership.
8. Was named after his maternal uncle, Mark Johnson, who died at the age of 26 in a motorcycle accident in 1977, a year before Jake was born.
9. Jake's father is from an Ashkenazi Jewish family.
10. His mother's ancestry is English, Irish, and Polish Catholic.
11. His parents divorced when he was two.
12. He has two siblings, brother Dan and sister Rachel.
13. He and his older siblings were raised by his single mother.
14. Johnson then took his mother's last name during high school.
15. Johnson has stated that since his 20s, his father has resurfaced and now they are close.
16. Grew up a fan of the Second City improv troupe, which showed off the talents of actors such as John Belushi, Tina Fey and Chris Farley.
17. Graduated from New Trier High School in Winnetka and started his post-secondary education at the University of Iowa.
18. While in Iowa City, he wrote a play, which wound up earning him admission to the Dramatic Writing Department at NYU's prestigious Tisch School of the Arts, followed by the 2002 John Golden Playwriting Prize and the Sloan Fellowship for Screenwriting.
19. The New York off-Broadway group, The Ensemble Studio Theater, produced his play Cousins.
20. While in New York, Johnson started the sketch comedy troupe The Midwesterners, modeling their material and style after HBO's sketch comedy Mr. Show with Bob and David.
21. After moving to Los Angeles, Johnson supported himself as a waiter and a production assistant.
22. Played Uma Thurman's character's brother in the romantic comedy Ceremony, and as a buddy of Ashton Kutcher's character in No Strings Attached.
23. In 2011, he played Jesus in A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas.
24. In 2013, he appeared in the music video for "Rouse Yourself", a song by indie-soul band JC Brooks & the Uptown Sound.
25. He is also starring in a series of Dodge Dart commercials with Craig Robinson.
26. In 2015, he played park informatician Lowery in Jurassic World which released recently.
27. Johnson is married to Erin Payne.
28. Johnson is a member of both the Sunday Men's Basketball League.
29. He is a member of the Interstate 5 Tennis Association.
30. Johnson dropped out of high school during his sophomore year, but he returned the following year.
31. He is a big fan of NFL's Chicago Bears.
32. He is a big negotiator as his father owned a car dealership so it's just in his blood.
33. Prefers to work with first-time directors.
34. Loves when people on Twitter give advice.
35. Would want to go to the future, 25 years in the future, and see if the Cubs ever win a World Series.
36. When he was growing up he wanted to be Chris Farley.
37. Considers himself a grinding actor going from one job to the next.
38. His dream career would be to be in things that have real heart and are telling real stories but while doing that, you're getting really big laughs.
39. His brother was an improviser and the funniest guys Johnson knows to this day.
40. Had a two-man show with Oliver Ralli who's now in the band Pass Kontrol.
41. He knew for a long time he wanted to be an actor.
42. Watched the Super Bowl at Steven Spielberg's house.
43. He started to grow his beard for Drinking Buddies the day after they wrapped New Girl season one. It took him two and half months to have the right size of the bead for the movie.
44. Described Olivia Wild as intelligent, compassionate and kind.
45. Was based out of Chicago and then went to New York where he did 'The Upright Citizens Brigade.' out there.
46. Liz Meriwether noticed him in the movie 'Paper Heart' and 'Ceremony.'
47. He likes pizza, cheeseburgers and Chicago food.
48. Admitted he had a lot of bad jobs. One of them was when he interned for 'SNL' because it was completely different from what he thought it would be.
49. On March 26, 2014, actor Jake Johnson confirmed his role in Jurassic Worl.
50. Johnson plays Lowery Cruthers, the park's tech-savvy operator in the recently released movie Jurassic world.
