All work and no play makes Jamie an actor
Beach Metro News (http://www.beachmetro.com)
by Jenny Yuen

From a distance, 14-year-old Jamie Johnston looks like an average kid. He enjoys playing soccer, basketball, hanging out with friends and playing guitar. But Jamie is also one of Canada’s young rising stars when it comes to television and film.

Most recently, he’s captured leading roles on the new YTV sci-fi kids show Zixx: Level One and the blackjack dealer-turned insurance fraud investigator drama Wild Card, seen on Global.

Jamie has lived with his parents and his older brother Chris in the Beach area all his life. When Chris nabbed some child modeling gigs a few years back, Jamie accidentally became involved in the photo shoot as well. That led to appearing on some TV commercials. And by the age of 10, he landed the lead role of a "boy" in Aesop Fables: a Man, a Boy & a Donkey at Trinity Theatre Studio on the Danforth.

"Theatre was just a lot of fun," Jamie said. "There were a lot of kids that I could meet, and learning the lines was pretty challenging when you're 10."

It was a career Jamie stumbled upon. He said he never aspired to become an actor, it just sort of happened.

"When I started modeling, I heard that people were getting commercials," he grinned. "It was like, "Wow, commercials." And when I got into that, I heard about people getting into TV shows and it was "Wow" again, and it just went on from there."

Jamie's mom, Lynda, doubles as his manager and parent. She encouraged him to pursue getting into the acting business because it was something he wanted, but she also made sure to avoid pitfalls that come with it.

"There's a stigma that exists about the business," Lynda explains. "There are agents that aren't reputable. Just go out and talk to people, which is what I did."

Jamie has also appeared in the movies, Winter Sun, Name of the Rose and Absolon with Lou Diamond Phillips and Christopher Lambert.

While acting is both a job and a hobby to him, he said he can't imagine doing anything else.

"When people think of jobs, people say, "Aw, I have to go to work today,'" he said. "But for me, it's like, "Yes! I get to go to work today." I'm always anxious to go to work."

On average, Jamie attends school for about two hours a day, and depending on the show. He can work for two to three hours upwards to 11. On Wild Card, he'd work five days straight and have weekends off. On Zixx, he was asked to work 11-hour days, eight weeks straight except for weekends, because there was plenty of dialogue to learn. But to Jamie, it's all a matter of balance.

"I get my school done in two hours doing hardcore studying and then the rest of the time, I do work," he said. "There's 24 hours a day, it's all doable. There was a time when I was gone for two months and when I came back, my friends said I grew."

Jamie is enrolled in grade nine theatre-drama classes at a Toronto arts school. He takes basic skills with him from the classroom to the screen, and adds that being gregarious really helps you be an actor.

"The more social you are, the more you can relate to people and people can relate to you," he insisted.

Although some of his peers are beginning to recognize him as "that guy from Wild Card," he takes it all in stride and doesn't see himself as a teen idol. He's received fan mail from viewers in Chicago and the United Kingdom, which he humbly responds to.

"It's been weird that people think that they know me," he chuckled. "They have an opinion on me and they've never met me."

Part of the reason Jamie is often mistaken for one of his characters is because he really gets into the role. In order to see the big picture, Jamie reads the entire script.

"I like to know why a character is doing what they're doing," he said. "That way, I can make them seem more realistic."

Johnston played a troubled youth in Killer Instinct.

An avid learner of his craft, much like his role model David Suzuki, Jamie has had to put himself into difficult roles. In a movie of the week called, Killer Instinct, he played a drug-addicted sexually abused boy.

"I watched some movies about hard drugs that my character was supposed to be on," he says. "I read newspaper articles about kids who were sexually-abused and how that messed up your life. I put all that in my head."

Last March, Jamie had a chance to meet inspirational author Joan Brock, an Arizona teacher who suddenly became blind. He played the role of Cory Mason, who was also blind, in a made for TV movie based on her life.

"She's such a strong person," he beamed. "Having such a burden and living a strong life, she is happy all the time. It's amazing how she's so adapted."

To prepare for this role, Jamie and a few others in Winnipeg were taught to use a cane for a day and then blindfolded to get the full effect of what it's like to be visually impaired.

"I got to meet a lot of blind kids," he recalled. "They were normal kids, just couldn't see. They had a great sense of humour. I went to A&W and we had our burgers and fries blindfolded and stumbled a few times. I felt like I was actually blind."

For young kids wanting to try their hand in film and TV, Jamie suggests taking some acting classes and to not take everything so seriously, especially auditions.

"You go in there, try your best and forget about it, because it's out of your hands," he said. "If you don't get a part because you're too tall or your hair's too light, at least you've been seen by the casting agent and if they like you, they'll keep you in mind for another part."

Next up, Jamie is looking forward to another season of Wild Card and he's also doing a few commercials. For now though, he's working on his greatest feat to date.

"I'm up for the challenge of writing an acceptance speech for an Oscar," he laughed. "I haven't started it yet, but I will."

Zixx: Level One airs Saturdays at 1:30 and 6 p.m. on YTV and Wild Card airs Wednesdays on Global 10 p.m.