With a small but showy recurring role on HBO's The Newsroom, this actor/filmmaker is one to keep your eye on.
The second season of "The Newsroom" is underway and up-and-coming actor/filmmaker Joel Johnstone caught our eye. Playing the leader of the Advanced team for Mitt Romney's 2012 campaign, Johnstone goes toe-to-toe with left-winger ACN's Jim (played by John Gallagher Jr.), making every effort to thwart Jim's ability to cover the Romney campaign.
We got the opportunity to speak to Johnstone about working with Aaron Sorkin, his award-winning short film The Pilgrim & the Private Eye starring Tom Noonan, and the advice he'd give to young filmmakers wanting to shoot in NYC.
Tribeca: I just caught up on "The Newsroom" last night and I love where the show is headed this season. How familiar with the show were you before you auditioned?
Joel Johnstone: Before I ever auditioned, "The Newsroom" was my favorite show on TV. I probably watched every episode twice, at least. I never thought that I was going to get the part because I was such a huge fan. I just cared too much. As an actor, you want to go in to every audition and have fun and be carefree and not care too much about the job. It's about doing good work. If you focus on the job, you're going to fall on your face more often than not.
Tribeca: You play Cameron, a Romney staffer who Jim first encounters in New Hampshire. Had you followed the race to the 2012 election closely?
JJ: I did. One of my best friends is in politics and worked for one of the national campaigns. I can't say which one but I would get daily updates throughout the process. Before that, I didn't know what an advance team was even though I ended up playing the head of Romney's advance team on the show. My best friend also filled me in on a lot of specialized knowledge that you don't find on the Internet. It's really eye opening and fascinating, but at the same time, is a little disconcerting to learn the ins and outs of how a presidential campaign is run.
You really have to search for that diamond in the rough when media is so easily accessible and relatively painless to make.
Tribeca: You're one of the lucky actors who gets to speak dialogue written by Aaron Sorkin. In fact, you have the most Sorkin-esque moment in the season 2 premiere of the show when you first encounter Jim outside the Romney bus. What was that experience like for you?
Tribeca: I was a huge fan. It's no secret that Aaron Sorkin is a gigantic actor's friend. He makes the set very open and inviting. I remember on my first day on location at 5:30 in the morning in late November the sun wasn't even up yet Aaron came up to me and welcomed me to the show and told me that I was going to be great. That was all I needed; that was it. [laughs]That opened me up and made playing the role very easy. Plus, John Gallagher Jr. is just the nicest person on the planet, and Alan Poul is an incredibly talented, wonderful director.
Tribeca: Were you always a fan of Sorkin?
JJ: I've followed him pretty religiously since I was sixteen years old. When I was a teenager, I just kind of fell in love with his writing. He's got his own stamp. There's a musical quality to his writing a wonderful rhythm that's just masterful. Plus, he's the most enthusiastic person on set. You really get that sense that there's no other place in the world this guy would rather be. He loves the whole process of telling this story, from the writing to the acting to the crew to everything. He's enthusiastic and it's contagious.
Tribeca: You directed, co-wrote and starred in The Pilgrim & the Private Eye, a short film that won the jury prize at the Long Island Film Festival. So, in addition to being an actor, you're also a filmmaker. Is it hard to juggle both professions? Do you ever feel like you're neglecting one for the other?
JJ: I felt that making this film helped me to become a stronger actor. The actors that I've always admired the most were the ones who also have created films themselves. I grew up watching guys like Robert Duvall, Billy Bob Thornton, Warren Beatty and Kevin Costner. I feel like it's an intertwined relationship, and one only makes the other stronger. If you know how to tell a story as an actor, you will be a better director and vice versa. To have your eye on the bigger picture and not just be focused in one area benefits all sides of storytelling.
So I never felt like I was juggling or sacrificing one for the other at all. I will say that as doing the film festival circuit as a filmmaker requires a giant time commitment that I didn't anticipate. It's a fulltime job to be on the festival circuit. Submitting the film is just the beginning. You also have to prepare to go and talk at events and promote your film, and that is an education all by itself.
Tribeca: Set in Coney Island, The Pilgrim & the Private Eye is a modern twist on old-fashioned noir that is filled with some unexpected laughs. Did you ever consider turning to kickstarter or indiegogo to raise funds?
JJ: I beat myself up every day for not using Kickstarter, I didn't know about Kickstarter or Indiegogo when I started all this. My writing and producing partner Matt [Kubacki] and I got to the point where if we didn't make the short right then, it wasn't going to happen. We'd always talked about it, but we really began aggressively writing it when we realized that everywhere we wanted to shoot in Coney Island was closing down.
Tom Noonan was filming "Hell on Wheels" at the time, but he had one weekend free in New York, so we had to rush to get things into action. It was 100% self-financed on an ultra, ultra shoestring budget. And if I could do it all over again, I would absolutely do Kickstarter because that w
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With a small but showy recurring role on HBO's The Newsroom, this actor/filmmaker is one to keep your eye on. 
