Actor Noel Johansen. Photo courtesy/copyright of Shimon.
Pastor, bodyguard, pilot, account, attorney, British military officer – Noel Johansen is never sure whose professional shoes he might be stepping into next, or where those shoes might take him. From period drama to contemporary tales and even the occasional Sci-Fi jaunt, the Montreal-born stage and screen actor has amassed a wealth of experience portraying a variety of characters and in a host of genres. Currently he is helping tell a down to earth story with a somewhat unusual twist in ABC’s Somewhere Between. He plays Danny Jackson, a prison inmate convicted of killing three women, including his brother’s fiancée, and who is awaiting execution by lethal injection. As if Danny’s life is not complicated enough, he also suffers from a genetic/physical disorder known as deletion syndrome. The prospect of stepping into these particular shoes was, not surprisingly, daunting as well as compelling for Johansen.
“I’d never auditioned for a role such as this or even played someone like Danny, so when I got the [audition] sides, I was skeptical, not about the material, but more the description of the character and whether or not I could play him,” recalls the actor. “However, as I read the sides, something just clicked in me and emotionally, I felt like I really understood Danny. After that I did my research and prepped for the audition, especially in regard to the character’s disability. Also, in the show, Danny wears a prison jumpsuit, and I wanted to feel what that was like. So I went to the Army and Navy Store and bought a flight suit, which was the closest thing I could find to a prison jumpsuit. I put that on and wore a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt over it to the audition. Only after I walked into the audition room did I take off my outer clothes to reveal the jumpsuit, which was kind of sneaky of me,” says Johansen with a laugh.
“The show’s casting director was great and she had me do a couple of different takes on the material, one where the character’s disability was more pronounced and another where it was not so much. I did the two takes and at that point I honestly wasn’t expecting anything more – I was just happy to have read for the role – but then I got a callback. This time there were a number of other people in the room, including Duane Clark, who directed the first episode, and the ABC executives were also on the phone. I ended up doing the material three or four different ways, and I know this is going to sound odd, but each time I felt like Danny was ‘talking’ to me, Noel, the actor, and kind of reassuring me in my mind. I let that kind of drive the creative process and, once again, wasn’t expecting anything more. So I was very pleasantly surprised as well as honored when I found out I had booked the role.”
In Somewhere Between, a fiercely-driven San Francisco TV news reporter, Laura Price (Paula Patton), is helping the police track down a serial killer who is targeting young women. Sadly, her daughter Serena (Aria Birch) is abducted by the murderer and later ends up dead. After attempting suicide, Laura wakes up to discover that time has been reset, and she has eight days to prevent Serena’s murder. She teams up with an ex-policeman-turned-private-investigator, Nico Jackson (Devon Sawa), who has experienced his own “reset” moment, only his involves his brother Danny. Shooting the show’s opening episode, For One to Live, was quite an unforgettable experience for Johansen.
“Certainly the biggest initial acting challenge with this role was learning about deletion syndrome and how to distinguish it from autism as well as other similar types of conditions,” he explains. “I spent quite a bit of time doing research on-line, but there really wasn’t much for me to go on. I did find one video from the 70’s of a seven-year-old child whose situation was rather severe because he had a harelip and other physical challenges. That’s not the degree to which they wanted Danny in the series. What’s also very interesting about this condition is that it ranges from being quite apparent in a person in terms of his or her physical disabilities, to a condition that is decidedly subtle and you may not even know that someone is suffering from it.
“Something else I discovered about deletion syndrome is that there’s an immense amount of emotional vulnerability that many people with this condition can experience. Danny experiences such emotional trauma and vulnerability, and, of course, while the show’s creators along with the network had to be happy with my performance, I was given the opportunity to explore more of a range with Danny insofar as what level of deletion syndrome he has. Also, my character has a daughter, Ruby, who suffers from the same condition as well. So I worked really closely with the actress who plays her, Imogen Tear, and the two of us came up with similar patterns of behavior for both our characters. It took a lot of finessing, but honestly, what really attracted me to this role was Danny’s emotional life, and I feel that once I found the character emotionally, everything else just fell into place.”
Danny was convicted of killing three women, including his brother Nico’s fiancée Susanna (Hilary Jardine). Along with his confession, there was a great deal of evidence against Danny, and Nico believing Danny was guilty, testified against his brother in court. This led to him suffering emotional issues, and eventually resulted in Nico being fired from the police department. The brothers’ mother Grace (Catherine Baroll) is convinced her son is innocent, and has been tirelessly working to prove that. Danny ends up being executed, but Nico’s “reset” sends him back in time before that happened. Like the show’s heroine Laura, he has been given a chance to change events. It has also given viewers the opportunity to see more of Nico’s and Danny’s relationship.
“In the scenes that have already aired, we’ve seen that Danny is totally devoted to his brother and would do anything for Nico,” says Johansen. “There is a huge amount of love between them. Obviously, though, there’s a problem because of the murders and Nico becomes conflicted as far as his feelings for his brother, but for Danny, nothing has changed. He just wants to be a good brother and do the best for Nico.
“So I don’t think there was ever an acrimonious or problematic issue between the two of them before events in the show took place,” continues the actor. “One of my favorite scenes involving Nico and Danny aired in episode two [2.0], and it’s where Nico visits Danny before he’s executed. That was a really long and emotional day of work, and it was also extremely rewarding because Devon Sawa is such a full-on consummate actor. He will not compromise anything when it comes to shooting a scene, either in terms of the effort in helping tell the story or in terms of emotional connection. I’m like that as well, so we really bonded as actors and, I think, as our characters, too.
“That day really stands out for me as an actor, and there were two more days like that, the end results of which you’ll see in upcoming episodes. One of those days, again, stands out for me, and it’s a scene that Devon, Hilary Jardine and I had. It was another very dramatic situation, and the director, Michael Nankin, was amazing. He allowed us to do what we needed to do, and there was a tremendous amount of trust between Devon and I. As a result of that trust, I think we were able to take the scene in a direction that we weren’t expecting. We shot it a number of times, and it felt almost like a marathon. We’d do one take and I thought, ‘There’s no way I can do that again,’ and then we’d turn around and do it all over again. It challenged me to the best of my ability, which was incredibly rewarding, and hopefully something magical came out of that.”
Although Johansen grew up in an acting family, he initially set out on a completely different type of professional path. “My dad is English and my mom, who is American, was an actor/director, mainly a director, and by the time I came along she was teaching, too,” he says. “Most of her family were doctors, but my mom studied at RADA [Royal Academy of Dramatic Art] in England and trained as an actor and then a director. Funnily enough, one of her first gigs was directing Patrick Stewart [Captain Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek: The Next Generation] performing Shakespeare at Manchester Rep in England.
“So I saw a lot of plays as a kid, and I acted a little bit in high school. It’s not that I wasn’t drawn to acting, but I was also drawn to politics and becoming a lawyer. I went to college in France where I studied French, history and politics, and after graduating, I got a job as a paralegal for a Washington-based firm in Europe. Now, I don’t mean to dramatize what I’m about to tell you, but one night, and I remember it distinctly, I was at home and experienced an incredible amount of anxiety about not being able express myself and who I was artistically and creatively. It was almost like a panic attack for lack of a better description. I asked my mom about it and she said, ‘Maybe law isn’t for you. You should go to drama school for a year.’ So I applied to drama school in England. My mom helped prep me for my auditions, I wound up being accepted at drama school, and I never looked back after that.”
Land of Smiles, Thirty-Seventeen and The Age of Adaline are among the actor’s feature film credits. Along with Somewhere Between, he has appeared on such other TV series as The L Word, Chaos, When Calls the Heart and the upcoming Loudermilk. Fans of TV Sci-Fi and Fantasy will likely recognize Johansen from his work on a variety of genre shows including Stargate Atlantis, Supernatural and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow.
“Stargate Atlantis was one of my first projects, and is quite memorable for me because I met one of my best friends on-set and he later became the best man at my wedding,” says the actor. “This was also my first time I was killed onscreen when my character was strangled by one of the monsters. Prior to this, I had shot a very small part in an ABC series, but my role on Atlantis was a bigger guest-star part. Although I knew I was prepared artistically for this job, I still felt green because back then I hadn’t had a lot of experience on-set. So just to be able to watch what was going on around me was a fun, educational and challenging continuing introduction to TV for me.
“In Supernatural, which I did seven or eight years ago, I got to play a sheriff and had the chance to be glib as well as subtly comedic, which I love. I shot this scene opposite a really burly actor whose character was talking about a bear, and my character, the sheriff, gave him a glib response before the main guys, Sam and Dean, came along and interrupted our conversation. It was a lot of fun to do, and great to meet the show’s leads, Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles [who play brothers Sam and Dean Winchester, respectively], as well as have the chance to work with [executive producer] Robert Singer.
“As for Legends of Tomorrow, that was super exciting and out of these three, probably the most interesting and most challenging for me because it came later in my career, so I felt more ‘seasoned’ as an actor. I played Lt. General Cornwallis and, coincidentally, I wore the same costume worn by Tom Wilkinson when he played Cornwallis in [the 2000 film] The Patriot. Tom is such an amazing actor, so that was quite a privilege for me. This Legends episode was a period piece, and while I’ve done a fair amount of period drama onstage, I haven’t done that much on TV. So this was a great opportunity. Also, my American side goes back quite a bit, and back to the Battle of Brandywine in Pennsylvania where my American ancestors are from. So the real General Cornwallis probably fought some of my ancestors on American soil. How’s that for subtle irony?”
Steve Eramo
As noted above, photo copyright of Shimon, so please no unauthorized copying or duplicating of any kind. Thanks!
