Interview and Article Links

Miscellaneous

Interview with Johnathon re life and work - Sugarcain Entertainment - July 17, 2007
Interview with Johnathon re The Washingtonians - Fangoria
Interview with Johnathon re The Washingtonians  - UnderGroundOnline
The Washingtonians (Masters of Horror) - UnderGroundOnline
Judas - Pauline Centre for Media Studies 
Interview with Johnathon - Houston Chronicle January 26, 2007
Interview with OK Magazine  November 30, 2007

Variety.com
July 13, 2007 - Angels Fall
March 28, 2007 - Prom Night
January 30, 2007 - Angels Fall
January 28, 2007 - Angels Fall
September 27, 2006 - The Washingtonians (Masters of Horror)
September 21, 2006 - Angels Fall
March 14, 2006 - Anonymous Content
February 2, 2006 -  Chesapeake Films
December 18, 2005 -  Sea of Dreams
November 20, 2005 - 8MM2
November 7, 2005 -  Chesapeake Films
June 4, 2004 - The Mummy an' the Armadillo
March 4, 2004 - Judas
October 23, 2002 - Kiss the Bride
October 22, 2002
April 29, 2001 - The Forsaken
July 6, 2000 - If You Only Knew
June 12, 2000 - How To Kill Your Neighbor's Dog
June 8, 2000 - How To Kill Your Neighbor's Dog
May 30, 2000 - VH1's It's Only Rock & Roll
May 4, 2000 - The Forsaken
February 12, 1999 - Splendor
December 2, 1998 - Houdini
March 5, 1998 - Hush
February 1, 1995 - Doom Generation

Magazine scans

People Magazine

Transcripts from various interviews and articles

Schaech's appeal - The Advocate  May 22, 2001  by Dennis Hensley
Forsaken star Johnathon Schaech talks about playing to gay men, playing gay roles, and playing companion to Ellen DeGeneres

Though Johnathon Schaech's character in the new thriller The Forsaken isn't gay, he does enjoy snacking on a few good men. "I play a vampire," explains the Baltimore-born star of That Thing You Do! and How to Make an American Quilt, who was last seen romancing Jennifer Love Hewitt on the Fox TV series Time of Your Life, "but not the typical bloodsucking vampire. He's been cursed for centuries with immortality, and he collects people to serve him." Serve him how, exactly? "Well, there's some good nude scenes," says Schaech with a laugh, "but no male frontals. That only happens on Oz."

Come to think of it, Schaech would be right at home on HBO's prison-set series with a big gay following, for here's an actor who has never shied away from sexually adventurous subject matter and who has a gay following all his own. Since his breakout role in Gregg Araki's The Doom Generation, in which he played an ambisexual drifter, the actor has practically dripped a kind of equal-opportunity boffability that has kept gay fans coming back for more. His homoerotic love triangle with Matt Keeslar and Kathleen Robertson in Araki's recent Splendor further fanned the flames.

"The most amazing, intelligent, artistic, caring men I've ever met have all been gay men," says the actor, who off-screen is engaged to actress Christina Applegate. "My uncle's gay, and growing up, I was always around him and all his friends. That's the part of the audience I want to attract more than anyone. If I can get the respect of gay people, then I'm the luckiest man alive, because they have the most open hearts."

It makes sense, then, that of all his characters, the one that most got under his skin was a Colombian-born gay Manhattanite dying of AIDS in David Rabe's '80s-set play A Question of Mercy, produced in Los Angeles last fall. Schaech first learned of the piece when one of his idols, Sean Penn, called to ask him to take part in a reading of Rabe's screenplay version, which Penn was considering directing.

“I was so scared, because I get to this reading and Warren Beatty, Lisa Kudrow, and Stephen Spinella are reading with me," marvels Schaech. "When it was over, I felt an incredible emptiness, like I hadn't really touched the loss of control that this character's going through." So when the opportunity came to play the role onstage, he jumped at it. "I started working on the piece and I became a recluse," says Schaech, who drew upon the experience of several HIV-posifive friends as well as the memory of his acting teacher, Roy London, who passed away in 1993. "Next thing I know, I'm 15 pounds lighter, 20 pounds lighter. I lost 35 pounds before I went onstage. One night I was so out of it, I just walked offstage. I didn't know where I was. My costam had to pull me back on."

The ethical question raised in the play--do people have the right to determine when they die?--hit home for Schaech when his aunt, a New York businesswoman who happened to be, lesbian, succumbed to cancer late last year. "She was on her deathbed, and we literally had to make a decision whether or not to stop feeding her," says Schaech softly. "Between that and the experience of the play, I realized that you've got to find out what you really want to do in life and pursue it while you can, because you don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow."

With that philosophy, it's no surprise that Schaech is unfazed by the long-standing rumor that he likes guys. "I kind of get off on it," he admits. "Hey, it means I'm open." He's even been known to fuel the fire on occasion. "The casting directors of this movie about Montgomery Clift asked if I was gay, and I went, `Well, yeah,'" says Schaech, who also notes that he has received gay-bashing hate mail. "Hey, I wanted the role."

His Monty dream project has yet to get off the ground, but even if it never does, he still has a place in gay and lesbian history. "I was Ellen [DeGeneres]'s beard for a while," he says with a laugh. "I'd go to premieres with her, get out of the limo, and smile. I don't think we fooled anyone, but I loved it, and we became good friends. She's a hilarious, incredibly deep woman. Before I met my fiancee, I always thought I should just marry Ellen."
COPYRIGHT 2001 Liberation Publications, Inc.

New tiger in tinseltown -  Interview Magazine,  Oct, 1996  by Rita Wilson

Some actors smoke. Some actors smolder. Johnathon Schaech blazes

It's too early yet to tell whether or not Johnathon Schaech is going to be a great actor. What is obvious, though, is that he's capable of unleashing an intensity that can burn holes in floors - or in flesh. That ability is compounded by his ironic awareness of this quality, which comes across most palpably in his Luciferian performance in Gregg Araki's The Doom Generation (1995). If Schaech uses his knowledge sparingly and chooses the right roles for himself, he could turn out to be a mighty dangerous movie presence.

This month, be appears as a moody member of a fledgling '60s rock band in Tom Hanks's directorial debut, That Thing You Do! We guess that, symbolically speaking, Schaech will play the John Lennon figure to Tom Everett Scott's Paul McCartney. We also guess that the Maryland-born Schaech will be making us twist and shout for many moons. Here, actress Rita Wilson, who also appears in That Thing You Do!, and who happens to be Tom Hanks's wife, talks to Schaech via phone, L.A. to Baltimore, where Schaech was visiting his family.

RITA WILSON: Johnathon, the first thing I want to talk to you about is how you got into acting.

JOHNATHON SCHAECH: It was always in my mind, something that I knew ever since I was a little boy. I would tell my room, and she would just kind of look at me. It was kind of like this awareness. I kept seeing where I was supposed to go. You know, we had a big party last night for my sister's twenty-ninth birthday, and all my friends came over, and they reminded me that when I was a kid, I kept saying I was going to go out to California.

RW: But first you went to the University of Maryland to study economics. Tell me how that computes with going out to California to become an actor.

JS: I kept thinking, There's got to be something else. I actually left [school] in my junior year. It was the week before finals, and I went to every one of my professors and said, "Look, I don't want to be here anymore. I'm going to go away, and I'll come back, possibly, but I just need to go." Then I went out [to Hollywood] for a week and I met some of the right people.

RW: What year was that?

JS: It was '89. I was nineteen years old.

RW: Did you know anybody when you came to Los Angeles?

JS: No, and I didn't have a car. I bummed a lot of rides. I met this man named Terry Hinckley, who was a models' agent at Wilhelmina West. He signed me up and gave me a bicycle. I still ride one.

RW: Did you stay in L.A. or go back to Maryland?

JS: I went back for a month to try to straighten out all the things I screwed up at college. And I did. The teachers were really receptive to my openness, I guess. Then I came back out to Hollywood again, and some great photographers like Bruce Weber and Herb Ritts took some pictures of me. But I was already studying with [the late acting coach] Roy London and I'd got the acting bug.

RW: Was Roy your mentor?

JS: I try and carry his torch every time I step in front of a camera. He taught me a great deal about acting, but he also made me believe in myself. I remember one time he just threw down the material we were studying and looked at me and said, "Can you do anything else with your life except acting?" And I stood up and said, "No, I can't." From that point on, I knew I couldn't walk away from acting. Not that I know what I'm doing, Rita. . . .

RW: Yes, you do. [laughs] How long had you been in L.A. before you landed your role in Franco Zeffirelli's film Sparrow [1993]?

JS: I had put in three years of studying by then. Zeffirelli really pushed me hard.

RW: Was it a good experience?

JS: Good and bad. I was so green, and I was scared to death. Zeffirelli's a very passionate man, and as well as trying to build you up and give you support, he can lose his temper and then not get along. But I think we made a good film.

RW: I can imagine him going [mimics Italian accent], "No, darling! No! Not-a-like that! I tell you do this way. You no do it this way." And then the next minute it's, "Johnathon, darling, you come-a to my house tonight for pasta. I make a big dinner."

JS: That's exactly it. And boy, did we have some great meals out there. You know, when I stayed at Zeffirelli's home, he told me I slept in the same bed that Laurence Olivier had, and he would tell me stories about Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton making love in such-and-such a bed. This was in his villa in Rome.

RW: [laughs] Now, it must be an actor's nightmare when you audition for a movie and send your audition tape to the director and his wife ends up looking at it with him.

JS: Oh no!

RW: [laughs] Well, that's what happened when you sent your tape for That Thing You Do! to Tom. But just so people reading this will know, I made no comments about your tape. Actually, when you came to audition, you did a very interesting thing. You were the only actor to come in dressed like a rock musician from the early '60s, when That Thing You Do! takes place. You wore a buttoned-up white shirt with a black skinny tie, and you'd combed your hair up in a certain way. It wasn't like somebody costumed you; it was your own choice and your own ability to distill the character for the purposes of the audition. It stood out so much that if anybody reading this interview is an actor, it would be like, "O.K., there's your number-one lesson." It was really wonderful.

JS: It was just something I could grab onto. I don't always do it, because some of the characters I audition for are so far-fetched that I can't find the right clothing. I just needed to do it with this character, Jimmy, because he's so dedicated to his work. I knew I had to prove myself. I was there to get the job, and to show that I knew Jimmy better than anybody else. I was so nervous meeting Tom. God, I don't remember how I even spoke to him! But I did. And then he brought an actor to perform with me, and after we started playing around a little bit, [Tom] started to act with me, and then I was really strong with my choices.

RW: Did you enjoy working with Tom as a director, or did he yell at you and invite you over for pasta later, like Zeffirelli?

JS: He directed us with a great deal of humor, which broke the tension. He always instructed me to find this . . . he used this word, which I can't remember, but it means "relaxation and concentration."

RW: He had to direct me in the movie, too.

JS: Oh, how did that go? I missed all that shooting.

RW: Well, you know, I had to sleep with him to get the part. [laughs] Which wasn't bad at all! I went back and did it again! [JS laughs] How did you like the dynamics of being in a band?

JS: Oh my God, that was so much fun. The four of us [Schaech, Tom Everett Scott, Steve Zahn, and Ethan Embry] worked so hard on our instruments. I think we really came together as a band through the whole thing.

RW: One of the things that lends such authenticity to your performance and to the movie is that everybody plays their own instruments. There are incredible closeups of you - those shots where [the cameras] are going from your hands, where you're strumming away, up to your face.

JS: I hope I'm on the right chord.

RW: Yeah, some die-hard musician is going to write in to Rolling Stone about how you were really in G-flat when it should have been G-minor.

JS: I know. Hey, just tell them guys we tried. We're actors first, but we tried to be musicians.

RW: Did you enjoy working with Liv Tyler [who plays Schaech's girlfriend in the film]?

JS: Yeah. We had only a few scenes, but we had a blast in Orange County, running around to all the little stores buying antiques.

RW: So what did you buy?

JS: I bought Mom a chocolate pot. It's like a teapot, but it's real narrow at the waist, with little decorations of flowers all over it, and then . . . I don't know how to describe it. I think they used them to make chocolate, or cocoa. Mom, tell me about a chocolate pot.

MRS. SCHAECH: In the mid to late 1700s, chocolate pots were introduced to Europe from Japan for the aristocrats to serve melted chocolate from, because a lot of people didn't like tea or coffee. They made chocolate pots part of dinnerware sets at the time.

RW: Oh, how great. Hi, Mrs. Schaech. I love that. Now, there's this other thing I want to discuss with you, Johnathon. I am not aware of it, but in my notes here from Interview, it says that there is an impression of you as being brooding. I've never felt that way about you. I've always found you accessible and warm and funny. So I think you've got to talk about this.

JS: Wow, people say I brood, huh? Well, I'm fighting that mood thing. I guess I brood a little bit. I get quiet. If I'm given the chance, I won't say a word, unless I like the person I'm talking to. Maybe when I'm intently listening, my eyes tense up, so it looks like I'm almost squinting. Maybe that's what they think brooding is. Well, Brando brooded! Hey!

RW: Yes, you're in good company. You just worked with Jessica Lange and Gwyneth Paltrow in the upcoming film Kilronan. Was that a learning experience?

JS: Yes. Jessica taught me something very important. We were in the middle of a scene and I didn't know where to go; so many things were going wrong, and I was getting freaked out. And I just asked for her help. And she reached out, looked in my eyes, and with all the love she had in her said, "Just take your time." She showed me that when action is called, it's our time as actors, and we can take our time to get what we need in the moment, and to fill it with as much as we want.

RW: So far, what has acting taught you about yourself? In other words, is the picture that you had in your mind when you were a child very similar to what you're experiencing now? Or is it better?

JS: Right now, it's pretty good. But the picture kind of gets light and then it gets dark. You're pulling into your aloneness, but you get attached to more people. And I think I keep getting lost and keep getting found.

RW: Meaning what?

JS: One day I'm wandering in a dark forest, and I don't know where to go, and the next thing I know, I'm riding on a golden path. I keep learning more about the mirrors in front of me, the eyes that are looking at me while I'm looking back at them.

RW: You and your girlfriend, Tina [Roesler], have been together for a while, and I'm sure she's gone through a lot with you as your career has started to take off. It says a lot about you that you've been able to maintain the ties to your family and your girlfriend while your world has become a series of mirrors and dark forests.

JS: She's really good at it. You know what she does for a living?

RW: What?

JS: She's a makeup artist. We met on a film. Everyday I was brooding in that [makeup] chair [laughs], and I just kept looking at her face straight in front of me. Yeah, she's been incredibly supportive. She's gone through a lot. I mean, I'm not an easy character to be alone with.

RW: What does "support" mean to you.

JS: Well, there's two trees here at our house. Out front, there's a little skinny one, and I know its roots aren't really attached to the ground. But then there's a great big oak in the back. It's got such grounding, such support from the ground, and because it's always got that support, it's always going to stand its ground. Does that make any sense? [someone laughs]

RW: Who's that laughing?

TOM HANKS: It's me.

RW: Hi, honey.

TH: What are you doing?

RW: Talking to Johnathon.

JS: How long have you been on [the line]?

TH: I just punched on to see if Rita's made you cry yet.

JS: Oh God! Yes, she did.

RW: Hey, honey, while you're on the phone -

TH: What?

RW: What's the word that you used with Johnathon that means "relaxation and concentration"?

TH: Equipoise.

JS: I put it in the interview.

TH: Sounds good to me. Hey, where are you?

JS: I'm in Maryland, at home. I wish you guys were over here. Have you ever had Maryland blue crabs?

RW: Wait, are you guys cooking crabs tonight for dinner?

JS: No, we had them last night.

TH: Do they put beer in the pot?

JS: Some people do.

TH: Put beer in there. Johnathon, I miss you!

JS: I miss you, too!

TH: All right, I'm getting off the line now. Back to work, you two!

JS: I heard him laughing. I hope he didn't hear the thing about the tree. He'll think I'm so weird.

RW: No, he'll just go, "Hey, that's very Katharine Hepburn." That makes me Barbara Walters, I think. Let's continue. What are your thoughts about religion?

JS: I think everyone needs a belief system. You've got to have something that makes you concrete, makes you fill up inside.

RW: Do you pray?

JS: I have so many forms of prayer. Sometimes I just take a real deep breath and that can be the greatest prayer of all, just to know that you're alive.

RW: You're a good guy, Johnathon, you're really not a brooder.

JS: You know what that might really be about?

RW: What?

JS: It's hard for me to trust. I've learned to trust a lot more in the last year than ever before, but it's still hard to trust out in L.A. Back here in Maryland, I trust a lot. I think that the brooding is just not trusting. Shall we look up brooding in the dictionary?

RW: I have a dictionary right here. Well, one thing it says is: "To ponder moodily; sulk."

JS: I never sulk.

RW: No, you're not a sulker! "To hover envelopingly. 'That gentle heat that brooded on the waters. - Sir Thomas Browne.'" Now, that describes you. And if people don't get that, then that's just their problem. Now, let's look up equipoise. If there's an equipoise, I'm going to give my husband a big fat kiss, and an apology. Oh my God! [laughs] It's a noun, and it means "equality and distribution, as of weight, relationship, or emotional forces; balance; equilibrium. 'And if he has not the balance of the critic, he has some other equipoise of his own. - T.S. Eliot.'"

JS: Bravo. Put that in there.
COPYRIGHT 1996 Brant Publications, Inc.

Johnathon Schaech, Writer/Star of "The Washingtonians" by Karl Braun (UnderGroundOnline)
Johnathon Schaech began his film career in 1993 after walking away from university. Schaech appeared in How to Make an American Quilt in 1995, and landed his biggest role the following year in That Thing You Do!. Since then, Schaech has shifted his focus from in front of the camera to behind the lens and screenwriting. Since partnering with Cemetery Drive Publications founder Richard Chizmar, Schaech has co-founded Chesapeake Films and has also co-written several thriller and horror scripts. In the Masters of Horror episode, "The Washingtonians," Schaech pulls double duty as both lead actor and writer.

UGO: What's the best part about seeing one of your scripts come to life?

JOHNATHON SCHAECH: Just seeing the actors say the lines. When they say, "Thanks, it's fun for me to say these lines. It's really fun." That's a great feeling.

UGO: How did you get your script to Mick Garris for Masters of Horror?

JOHNATHON: My partner, Richard Chizmar, is the publisher and editor of a company called Cemetery Dance. He's had it since he was in college and he's 40 years old. It's the leading publisher of horror and sci-fi in the country. He and Mick Garris had been talking and we adapted two Stephen King novels: One was From a Buick 8, which is a best-selling novel and hopefully we'll see if it gets made this year, and Black House, which we adapted for Akiva Goldsman, the guy who did A Beautiful Mind and The Da Vinci Code. Mick had read one of our scripts and he said, "What do you guys have for the second season? We're looking for scripts." My partner pushed a couple things their way and asked what they thought of them. When he came to "The Washingtonians", which is an 8-page Bentley Little short story, he said, "What about this one? The short story is great, but how would you guys make it an hour long?" So we wrote a treatment about how we would do it and they loved it. Then the next process was getting Peter Medak to direct it, which was exciting. The Changeling is a great film. He also did The Ruling Class. He's got this operatic background and he directs operas. "The Washingtonians" is scary, but it's also grandiose and it's got "that," whatever "that" is. He's got the perfect mix for this.

UGO: Did you write the character of Mike with yourself in mind?

JOHNATHON: It's funny, the part is my partner. I'm basically playing my partner in this. He's a family man; he's got two wonderful children, and incredible wife. It's more of a family caught in the most bizarre situation you can imagine, and trying to get out of it. Basically, it's him.

UGO: How does Peter Medak direct you?

JOHNATHON: Peter is collaborative. I'm the writer and most feature directors, they don't let the writers on the set. Here, I'm knocking this thing, saying, "Peter, maybe he should say the line like this." Peter's got it all together. I don't need to tell him anything. I'm amazed. I'm learning tons and learning to be a better screenplay writer. Just as an actor, he gives you freedom. It's the same thing Tom Hanks did with the "you can do no wrong, so try this" mentality.

UGO: From both a writer and an actor standpoint, where does the fear come from for this episode?

JOHNATHON: When I was working with Chizmar on this, one thing that we really retained is that it's a visual piece. Ray Bradbury said, "There's nothing scarier than a clown at midnight." You think, "Okay, well, what the hell is a clown doing at midnight?" Exactly! What the hell is this guy dressed up like George Washington doing standing outside a window? He shouldn't be there. That's scary. If he was standing in a re-enactment that's one thing, but for a guy out in the middle of nowhere, that's how we kept our scary element.

UGO: You've acted in a lot of films over the years. When did you decide to make the jump to writing, directing and producing?

JOHNATHON: I wrote one screenplay right after I worked with Tom [Hanks]. Tom wrote, directed and produced That Thing You Do! and I had this one story that I really needed to tell. You try to write a screenplay and then get it into somebody's hands. They look at it and they might like you a lot, but they're like, "This isn't proper format, where's your third act?" From there, I really cared about that story, so I literally started to take classes, sit down, study and watch. I did a lot of films to just learn how everything works. Every time I did a film I was growing and learning, and it just evolved. Then I partnered with my partner about four years ago and since his background is editing and he's a writer, we just decided we would grab onto this art form of screenplay writing. Chizmar is a successful guy that really cares. We got to work with Akiva Goldsman and Mick Garris, who are great screenplay writers. We really honed our craft and now we're getting in there and we're getting competitive.

UGO: Given the current political climate, how does the topic of revisionist history play out in "The Washingtonians?"

JOHNATHON: I think we take it and nail it right on the head [laughs]. It says in the beginning that there is a huge war in Iraq, and we only know so much about it. There's so much behind the doors that we really don't know and it's only what they really tell us. Very much like film. There's a whole space that's filled with different things that are going on, but it's whatever the camera sees, so it's very much the same thing that we're stuck with in our media. As much as we don't want to believe it, we're really controlled by our government. I just think there are so many lies in history, as well as lies now in this United States government. I think there's a lot of corruption that many people know about, but don't want to admit to, and that we can't imagine. Day by day, soldiers are dying because people are lying. The history books really are being written right now. What are they going to tell our children in school? That they went there to save the USA from "weapons of mass destruction." Are they going to include that line even though there were no weapons of mass destruction? Are they going to say that to the kids? Can they say that to the kids and paint that messy picture? So it's kind of pointing to that place where we always want to find the truth. We're always seeking the truth.

UGO: Why did you start writing horror? The Poker Club is more of a thriller, but you do a lot of horror.

JOHNATHON: Yeah, it's definitely a thriller. We've been playing with that for so long, we've got good actors attached, but the financing is difficult. It's difficult to make a film these days. The horror comes from that we did a short film that had horror elements to it. My partner, he's a huge Stephen King fan. He's been a Stephen King fan forever. We made a short that was very King-ish, and that led to getting the rights to Stephen King's novel, which just, you know, people hire what they know. I went to him after I did a film called The Forsaken. I love the genre and I think it's a very clever genre. Our company is not just about horror. We'll keep expanding. We've got other teams here and there. So we're really horror forefront, but we're doing other things.

UGO: What scares you?

JOHNATHON: What scares me? Sharks scare me. I hate sharks, but anything that can get me outside of my own element. Guns don't really scare me. I can imagine a few situations, but at least you have the ground beneath you. At least you stand some sort of a fighting chance. I couldn't imagine being tied up. That's scary as hell. Sharks scare the hell out of me, though. Poor Steve Irwin, too, the Crocodile Hunter. It's just horrible. Once again, we've seen him do some amazing things, but he was a great entertainer. It was tragic, especially for his kids.

COPYRIGHT 2006 UnderGroundOnline

By LUAINE LEE - Houston Chronicle

PASADENA, CALIF. -- When actor Jonathon Schaech was in school, his dad arranged for him to be an extra in John Waters' movie Hairspray, which was shooting in Baltimore. But Schaech was so frightened he never showed up.

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Houdini