If you’ve come here for Jack Johnson, you’ve got the wrong guy.
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You probably know Jake Johnson as Nick Miller on New Girl, but you may be surprised to find out that he is also partially responsible for the webseries and television show Drunk History. In real life he has a fondness for beer too, so maybe it's more than coincidence that he plays a bartender on New Girl and his character in Drinking Buddies worked at a Brewery. Either way it was fitting that we caught up with him at the launch of Stella Artois' Perfect Draft in New York City. We talked about his love of drinking, the truth behind the most confusing drinking game in history, True American, and he let his artistic abilities shine.
What's your drink of choice?
Jake Johnson: I like Stella, and I like this Perfect Draft because I like that I can have it in my home. I mean that genuinely, I like to drink! I'm at the part of my life where I don't want to go to a bar all the time. I'm done. I want to be home, but I don't always like to drink beer out of a can or a bottle. I like a draft beer.
Besides Stella what do you drink?
Jake Johnson: I also like Ketel, so if I'm going booze, I'll go Ketel on ice. I used to like soda in there, and then I got embarrassed that I was a grown man drinking vodka sodas. I don't drink Miller Lites anymore — I used to.
No Natty Light then?
JJ: Believe me, I went to the University of Iowa for two years, so I've been down that road. Now I'm 35 years old, you know?
You went to a big party school then, so tell me what the most embarrassing thing you've done while drunk?
JJ: I mean, there's a lot! There's a lot. The most embarrassing thing I've done recently... I mean, there's just too many. I will tell you an embarrassing story that occurred at the University of Iowa that wasn't about me, but was about a guy I was drinking with. They had overbooked the dorms, and we all had to sleep in this main room, with bunk beds. And there was one guy, his name was Todd and he was from Newton, Iowa. And he was trying to convince me that a frat was the way to do it. I was always an independent, but my friends were in a fraternity, so I hung out with those guys. So one night we all come back, we were all partying, and Todd had gone deep that night. And one of my other roommates woke me up and said, "I think Todd took a crap on the speakers," and there was an old — this was the '90s, I guess, now I'm an old man, but it was, like, '97 — CD player with these speakers, nothing was wireless. And somebody had taken a crap all over, and there was toilet paper leading back to his bunk. So I woke him up and I go, "Hey homeboy, you just took a shit on Mike's speaker, man! You did that!" And he goes, "How do you know it was me?" And I go, "Well, there's a toilet paper trail all the way back to your buttcheeks."
So you've just sold Todd out.
JJ: Yeah, I don't talk to him anymore. He left the dorm — I'm not kidding — that night. He didn't clean anything up and that was the end of it. So that's an embarrassing thing that happened with alcohol. For Todd at least.
What's your favorite drinking game?
JJ: Quarters. You ever see the show Drunk History?
Yeah! I was going to ask you about that.
JJ: Well Derek Waters [the creator] came to my house when I first moved to Los Angeles, and we became friends. We did a short together, we did Jake and Derek's Road Trip with Nick Jasenovec who directed Paper Heart. And one night he said, "What are you doing?" I said, "Nothing, what are you doing?" I said, "How about this, come to my house, sleep over, let's go old school. Sleep on the couch, let's drink a million beers and just be idiots, order pizza at midnight, pretend we're in college." And we start drinking, and we're drinking and we start playing heads-up quarters. I got really drunk and I told him a long-winded Otis Redding story. The next morning he called me up and said, "Will you re-tell me that story on camera?" And I said, "Why?" And he goes, "Because I want to film actors doing reenactments and I want Otis Redding to tell you to shut up."
So that's how Drunk History started.
JJ: Yup, it was heads-up quarters with Derek Waters.
OK, so since you were part of the reason Drunk History exists, can you recite any of the Gettysburg Address?
JJ: No! It took me five years to get through high school; I'm not doing that shit now!
So another famous drinking game is...True American, made famous by New Girl. Do you know the rules? Does anyone know the rules?
JJ: No. There are no rules. I know people on the internet created lists and things, but there are no rules. It's a game that's made up each time we play.
