Jake Johnson on Hulu's 'Self Reliance,' 'Minx' cancellation

By Los Angeles Times Staff

Jan. 12, 2024 12 PM PT

Welcome to Screen Gab, the newsletter for everyone who already misses Doug Renetti.

For those who’d come to love “Minx’s” alluringly seedy magazine publisher, played by Jake Johnson, the recent news that Starz canceled the series — just one season after picking it up from Max — is bound to sting. Luckily, Johnson, who joins us for this week’s Guest Spot, has a new movie, “Self Reliance,” streaming this week. That should soothe fans somewhat, as might senior television writer Yvonne Villarreal’s profile of Johnson from earlier this year. All that and much more in Screen Gab No. 114.

Also of note: The Times will be sending daily dispatches from Park City, Utah, throughout the first weekend of the Sundance Film Festival via our sister newsletter, The Wide Shot. Sign up here.

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With a flailing Jo Koy at the helm, the Golden Globes’ party seriously fizzled: Not even the dissolution of the Hollywood Foreign Press Assn. could kill the Golden Globes. So, on CBS, the show went on — without any of the excitement producers promised.

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“Craft in America” (PBS)

One of the lesser-known gifts from PBS to you is the long-running “Craft in America,” a colorful, fun, inspiring and at times deeply moving celebration of making things. They only produce a couple of episodes a season, but each hour is packed with thematically-related content that covers a range of media, cultures and current and historical practitioners. The latest episodes, which may be streamed from www.craftinamerica.org, www.pbs.org or YouTube, along with those from past seasons, are “Miniatures” and “Play.” The former includes the jeeps and trucks of Cuba’s Leandro Gómez Quintero, made from cardboard and found objects, and the perfect tiny replica antique furniture of miniaturist Mark Murphy; the latter encompasses piñatas — hands up if you knew L.A. had a Piñata District — Schroeder Cherry’s African American puppetry and the Skirball Museum’s environmental Noah’s Ark installation. Every artisan comes with a story, and community is an issue throughout — both of craftspeople among themselves, and in the wider world. (Locals can also visit the Craft in America Center, currently featuring works from the above episodes, 8415 W. Third St., open Tues.-Sat., 12-6 p.m.). —Robert Lloyd

Keri Russell, left, and Andy Griffith in the 2007 movie 'Waitress'

“Waitress” (VOD, multiple platforms)

Remember “Waitress,” the Keri Russell indie film about a small-town diner server who finds herself unexpectedly pregnant? Since that movie came out in 2007, it has been adapted into a hit stage musical, which was then filmed on Broadway and is now available to stream. Over the years, this show has become quite the crowd-pleaser for its quirky physical humor and delicate pop melodies, but the cherry on top is the fact that it stars its composer-lyricist Sara Bareilles — a hot ticket I myself couldn’t get when I was in New York. Thankfully, her standout performance is immortalized on screen, and is definitely best enjoyed with a slice of your favorite pie. —Ashley Lee

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Since premiering last spring at the Cannes Film Festival, “Killers of the Flower Moon” has emerged as perhaps the thorniest of the season’s top Oscar contenders.

Adapted from the gripping book by David Grann, the true-crime epic reconstructs the story of Mollie Kyle (Lily Gladstone), an Osage woman who meets and marries World War I veteran Ernest Burkhardt (Leonardo DiCaprio) in 1920s Oklahoma — then watches as her family members and other beneficiaries of the Osage oil fortune are murdered, one by one, at the behest of Ernest’s seemingly kindly uncle, William Hale (Robert De Niro). As Times film critic Justin Chang and numerous Native American viewers have noted, director Martin Scorsese devised a series of imperfect solutions to the problems posed by the subject matter: He (re-) cast a movie star as Mollie’s untrustworthy husband. He removed the federal investigators who uncovered the Osage murders to the edge of the story. And, most critically, he adopted an omniscient point of view, by which Ernest and William’s role in the killings is clear from the outset — to the viewer, at least, if not to Mollie.

The result may not be, as DiCaprio feared, a “white savior” narrative, but it has given me fits over multiple viewings nonetheless. Would the film hold the viewer’s attention better over its 206-minute running time as a paranoiac thriller in which it slowly dawns on Mollie that her family is being purposefully targeted? Or is its unwieldy, brutal expanse, in which white supremacy operates with impunity under the thinnest veil, the only appropriate framework for understanding the crimes at its center? Is this an Osage story with white villains, in other words, or a story of white villainy with Osage trappings? More than those critics who made “Killers of the Flower Moon” the 10th-best-reviewed movie of 2023, I remain uncertain whether it succeeds as a crime saga, a historical epic or a family drama, much less a heady combination of all three. And yet there’s no film from last year I’ve wanted to chew over, and talk about, more than this one. Which means I’ll almost certainly be watching it again now that it’s streaming on Apple TV+ —Matt Brennan

Guest spot

A weekly chat with actors, writers, directors and more about what they’re working on — and what they’re watching

A man on a TV set watching a video monitor

Jake Johnson has left viewers wanting to play a game before. As fan-favorite man-child Nick Miller in “New Girl,” he helped conceive True American, a fictional drinking game with perfectly ambiguous and ridiculous rules, where the floor is lava, you drink from a bottle of whiskey and are surrounded by an insane amount of beers — all while occasionally shouting “JFK, FDR!” In his new film, “Self Reliance,” now available to stream on Hulu, Johnson has concocted a more existential game he hopes will leave an impression. Written, directed by and starring Johnson, the film centers on a guy who gets invited to compete in a game where he can win $1 million by staying alive while others try to kill him. The film also stars Anna Kendrick, Andy Samberg and Christopher Lloyd. Johnson spoke with us about the film’s origins, transcendentalism and never quite being done. —Yvonne Villarreal

Did you write this film during the pandemic? I know it was first conceived as a TV series, so how did it evolve into a movie?

I wrote it around Season 5 or 6 of “New Girl” and I was hoping to do it after the show ended. I was talking to Trent O’Donnell, who ended up directing [2021’s] “Ride the Eagle” [which stars Johnson]; he was a directing producer on “New Girl.” I pitched it to Netflix, they passed on it. I was so disheartened because I just love the tone of it so much that I just didn’t want to keep pitching it. I felt like, “I don’t want to keep trying to go to these parties and getting rejected.” And I don’t want to try to change the pitch to make it work. We shot it for 18 days here in L.A. and it was just a dream. It premiered at South by Southwest; it went great. But I felt, in watching it, I wasn’t finished. We sold it to Hulu. And then I begged for some money for some additional photography and some reediting. We went back to work after it was already done. And then we retested and audiences seem to really respond in the way we want. It was just such a fun, unique experience on a movie.

How is it to see your vision come to life?

The really hard part about it is, I could keep working on it forever. So, it’s just done because we ran out of time. What I’m kind of realizing in this phase of my career is that you hope for another chance, and you hope for more opportunities. Because it’s just this moment right now. I think the movie is really great, it’s really fun, but it could be so much better if I had 10 more years. It’s a stupid thing to say because it’s not realistic, it’s not real life. But that was what was hard as an actor. I don’t have that. When I’m in “Minx,” when I’m done, Ellen [Rapoport, the show’s creator] goes off and works on it and texts me during color correction and says, “What do you think of this?” or Phil Lord, on “Spider-Verse,” will text something like, “Hey, man, can you come in for one more record? I have an idea” and as an actor, my thought is like, “anything you need because you are in it.” This was the first time where I was calling people being like, “Hey, Kendrick, it’s Jake Johnson. Can you just do this really briefly?” I would work on this movie forever. But there’s just a point where Hulu needs it delivered.

The film starts off with a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” When did that quote find you?

I had gotten into transcendentalism as an idea in high school. And I just thought it was, and I still think it is, the greatest lesson, and that is: If you feel something about yourself is true, you’re right. I think that voice we all have, whatever that instinct is, if you’re walking down an alley and you feel scared — I don’t know why we’re taught not to listen to it. The core of this movie that I wanted to make, especially during the pandemic, is that even when the world is crazy, you have a responsibility to listen to yourself. Part of it is so many people are watching so many YouTube videos and going so crazy with conspiracy theories. Even friends of mine, people I value, where I’m like, “You’ve been up until 4 a.m., smoking weed, and now you believe the weirdest s—.” I’m like, “Sit by yourself for a second. What do you really think?”

It was recently reported that Starz won’t be moving forward with another season of “Minx.” The series endured some obstacles in its short time: filming during a pandemic, change in network homes after its renewal got terminated by Max. What would you have wanted to see from Doug in a third season? Any parting words to the fans?

I am sad that Doug’s story is finished. I felt there was more to tell. I was very excited to see Doug change as the 1980s came around. There was talk about a time jump. Thanks for all who supported the show and who applied pressure to get us a Season 2. It was felt and appreciated by all of us.

What is your go-to “comfort watch,” the movie or TV show you go back to again and again?

MTV’s “The Challenge” is a show I love to watch even when I am mad at it.

What have you enjoyed recently that you are recommending to everyone you know?

The podcast “Heavyweight.”