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INSIDE THE MIND OF THE INDUSTRY’S NEWEST GO-TO GUY, JAKE WILSON SPEAKS HE’S 28 YEARS OLD AND FINALLY
PEOPLE ARE STARTING TO
RECOGNISE HIM AND WHAT HE
DOES.
By Mark Bond Jake Wilson spends time between Manhattan, New York and Hollywood, California, you’d be forgiven for automatically assuming he is a typical Hollywood asshole. Instead he has quickly went from tiny indie movie star to one of the most recognizable faces in the music industry, it’s been an interesting year for the actor, writer, director, producer, A&R man, talent scout and host of his own chat show, Late Night with Jake Wilson.
In recent times he could walk around Hollywood and not be noticed by anyone, sometimes not even by friends and colleagues but now things are a little bit different, “It’s getting a little bit crazy but I’m not gonna complain.” He can now get a table at his favourite Hollywood restaurant at short notice and is rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous, some may call him a sell-out for accepting the job at Junction Records or for hosting his own chat show but he doesn’t agree, “The reaction I got was like 94% positive, I’m still the same person, My circle seems to have widened but I’m still just as involved in the kind of movie’s I’ve always made, it just so happens that I can afford to take my time to decide what roles to take, in the past I couldn’t really afford to turn an awful lot of roles down, and now I have a freedom to work on my own things and it’s something I’m grateful for.” he says with a loveable grin, familiar to many.
As stated he is a Hollywood based actor/writer and when you here that description you do paint a picture of an obnoxious and cocky Hollywood A-lister always with an attractive woman on his arm, something Jake couldn’t be further away from, “Ha, I’m the most awkward guy you’ll ever meet and it’s worse when I’m around women, I’m not at all capable of being that kind of guy. I’m just not a Hollywood kind of guy, have you seen my apartment, I mean I’m not living in some Indian slum but it’s nothing special, I’m from Jersey, I’m used to the simple things in life.”
Prior to this year he wasn’t a massively well known actor, quite well known to 16-22 year old indie loner kids but other than that if you said the name Jake Wilson, ears wouldn’t prick up like they do when you mention someone more like Ryan Ross Hernandez or Miss Vanity. But he has quite a solid movie background, making a small name for himself in Manhattan Sky before becoming a household name with the aforementioned 16-22 year old indie loner demographic in the long running teen drama Lonely Youths.
But some may be unaware that he made his acting debut way back in 1996 at the age of 14 in a romantic drama called Roses Are Red, “That was a bizarre experience, I was in a movie and that was a big deal, until the film came out and pretty much nobody saw it, It was released for cinema for like a week and it wasn’t very successful, then it just kind of disappeared. I only played a smallish supporting role in it and it was a great experience to have at such a small age, do I regret it though, definitely not.”
It wasn’t until 2003 when he sent a script he had been working on since the age of 16 to Fox picked up by Fox and funded by Fox Searchlight, it was made with a budget of just under $1million and it became an unexpected success, It was called Manhattan Sky but it didn’t do great initially but it was taken to a small film festival and word spread so much so that when it was released to DVD it became an indie success, Jake wrote the script, directed the movie, played the lead and produced the soundtrack and with that, he finally arrived and with a lot of promise too, he had a small but loyal fan base which has grown ever since, “The small amount of fans I had at that time were incredible, I was amazed first of all that the script was picked up and I was very lucky that they didn’t really want to interfere in the film, I told them my vision and they just let me run with it, it was very surprising and I got to make the kind of film I always wanted to make, it’s like when a successful musician releases an album which fails commercially but it’s like their greatest work, if that makes sense. The DVD success has been crazy, I think it’s gone on to earn $24 million, obviously it started selling again this year with the new fame and stuff.”
He didn’t work on another film until 2006 due to schedule clashes with the TV series. But he returned in 2006 with a new film which was written in the space of 7 months, it was called Darkness Has No Name and was considered a failure compared to his previous effort, “People looked at it as competition to Manhattan Sky but it was tough to leave that work behind me and it was tough for Darkness to create it’s own path, I think people wanted to see the quirkiness of what Manhattan Sky had but it just wasn’t what I was going with, this new effort was a more darker dramatic edge and it’s something I’m hugely proud of. It did go on to earn like $7 million but it was considered a failure, I was happy with what I created but like in entertainment it’s very common for someone to be considered a failure when they go into a new artistic direction, some people can’t accept change and that kills a lot of great talent.”
He continued to work on Lonely Youths and stayed away from films for a while, with the exception for producing soundtracks, In 2006 he was asked to produce the soundtrack to a film called Don’t Look Back which was a moderate success and in 2008 he returned to producing for the soundtrack to Home Sweet Home which stared Cristina Lake, He wasn’t involved in either films other than the soundtrack but was often on the set, “Those films were different, It was kind of like a friend benefit, I went to college with Kay, she wrote the script for both Home Sweet Home and Don’t Look Back, so she kind of wanted me to be around and help out if it was needed but in honesty I didn’t do anything apart from the soundtrack work, because of Manhattan Sky I got this reputation as a good judge of music, which is good because it obviously led to me being involved in Junction Records.”
It was on set during Home Sweet Home when he met Cristina Lake which ultimately led to her becoming a musician, “She was singing during a break on set and it was like she had the voice of those old fashioned singers, like Marilyn Monroe or Etta James, it was kind of breezy and refreshing. So I got her to record a cover of the Simon & Garfunkel song The Boxer for the soundtrack and it was one of the best things I had heard, I basically badgered her for the next two years to become a musician and I eventually managed to persuade her and I got her signed to Junction Records, I think music is the future for her, she’s crazy talented.”
In 2009 he finally finished on Lonely Youths after 9 seasons on the show and he began to get offers, one of which was for the love story adapted from the novel of the same name, Revelations: Young Lust, it became another teen hit but almost unnoticed by anyone over the age of 30. It was the first film where he worked as actor and director and in early 2010 the sequel was released to a bit of fanfare, Revelations: Grace & Dreams is where it all changed for Jake, the demographic of his fans had widened and now he was becoming a household name, he again directed the sequel and within two weeks of it being released on DVD it had earned over $30 million. “Yeah I’m proud of that work, It was something people can relate to and evidently people did relate to it, It was hugely successful and I’d expect to see another 3 films before it ends, the demand is certainly there and I‘m up for it.”
2010 was of course the year when it all changed, the revelation sequel was just the beginning, He was offered the role as A&R man/Head Scout for Junction Records in early 2010 and became the man who made the signings as Max took a backseat, Jake signed Cristina Lake and Alicia Lena who became superstars with their debut albums and it was Jake’s vision which made it happen.
In the summer he released another indie film which he had written, called New York Scene, which starred Cristina Lake and Juliette Moore and the soundtrack was written and recorded by Max Armstrong. It was another string to his bow and it was as he describes, the film which earned him time off, “I had written 3 films and two of them earned over $10 million on a budget of less than $2 million. I felt that I deserved a holiday so yeah I took time off and it was during that time off when I got the call.”
That call was to host the first ever Music Hall Of Fame Awards, “It was crazy, I had became an unplanned music guy, I’m an actor but music has enhanced my ability and it has helped give me more opportunity’s. I loved it and people seemed to enjoy the show, that’s all I could ask for.”
It was at the music hall of fame when he made a joke which has unexpectedly became folklore and has ultimately became bigger than himself, “It’s the most obvious, simpleminded joke I had ever written and it’s somehow taken on a life of it’s own, everyone remembers me for it and I’m fine with it, if that’s what people know me by then good I guess, In hindsight I’d probably say that that was a pretty terrible joke.”
And now he’s a late night chat show favourite, Late Night with Jake Wilson has had two episodes, with Brittany Knox and Mikki Moo and have both helped earn the show over 7 million viewers, there’s six episodes in the series and with guests like GirlSpice, Ryan Ross Hernandez, Stacey Walton and Stephanie Fierce, the viewing figures are expected to rise. He seems to be liked by the majority of musicians, “I don’t think there’s only one kind of music that is the right kind of music, If I don’t like someone’s music then I’ll just stay away from it. And with the guests on the show, it’s people who the audience would most like to see on the show.”
And the future is looking bright for Jake, season 2 of Late Night has already been rumoured, “I’m almost 100% certain that there will be a season 2, there’s demand for it and I love it so I can’t see why it won’t go ahead.”
He’s also working on a couple of other projects, “I’m in the process of creating a TV series, I don’t want to say too much because it’s at an early stage but I’ll be creating it and I’ll have a writing team, It will definitely have a music element to it but I can’t say too much. I‘m also in talks about taking a theatre role for a 6 show run on Broadway, again I can‘t say too much, I‘ve also got a couple of other irons in the fire.”
And the future of Junction Records is up for debate, “I think I’ve got to do something about it, I’ve got the backing of everyone at the label and it’s just a formality, Max took a huge chance on me and Jackson is planning on making it a one genre label, he’ll run it into the ground and I can’t let that happen. Some may think that I’m doing this for glory or for other reasons but I’m not, I have plans for the label and I have plans on keeping it going in the direction Max and Lucy would have wanted.”
And will he get sucked into the Hollywood big time, “Definitely not, this place eats you up and spits you out, I’ve seen it happen to so many people and the common ground between them is always the same, Excess, I’m not gonna buy the jaguar and walk around surrounded by a bevy of supermodels and porn stars, Like I said before, I’m just a regular boring guy from New Jersey who likes the simple things in life.” |
