youtube who needs the moon when you have a superstar on the electronic couch of the
life game show ladies and gentlemen this is the man the longest running member of power shane
johnson you guys know him aka cooper sacks mr shane how you doing tonight oh i'm doing great
man thanks for having me i'm excited great great to have you and of course when the celebs come out
i got to give you the red carpet treatment so you get the hollywood ovation here you go
easy
that's one smile done already there's one good smile we've gotten from you my man
so talk to me shane how did you how did you get your journey and acting started
um i think it's very fair to say from the people that love you in power um there's a term they use
in the comments where they say that um a villain or a bad guy can be an anti-hero i think you're
one of the foremost anti-agonists in a story that we've seen so just talk to me about how
you got into acting and what got you started yeah well you know when i was when i was a kid
i thought i was going to be a baseball player that's what i really wanted to do
and then you know but i always like to entertain and um
my my favorite you know when i was when i was really young my passion was uh
was dancing actually and um and i started i got really into break dancing i don't know how old
you are but there were these couple of movies break into electric boogaloo was one of them
awesome movies were like turbo and ozone and stuff like that right then um it was it just blew
my mind watching those guys dance and watching michael jackson coming up being a fan of his oh
and you know uh i just fell in love with dancing um and and i think what it really was is is the
art of just like performing in in making people happy and and finding an expression it wasn't just
it wasn't just like there right away but that you had to like put some of your heart and soul into
to bring to life so i so that's what was my entree into into the arts and then when i was like 14
um people just kind of were like dude you have to do these you have to do a play you gotta go
audition for this for something and so i went and i auditioned for the school play you know
i lived in a little tiny farm town and at the time i was like you know i was living in a trailer park
you know i mean in the middle of washington state no but nobody was an actor from there
it wasn't like it wasn't like i was thinking oh i'm gonna go be a star i was like okay fine
i'll go audition for this play and i told the director i don't want to have any lines because
i don't want to do your stupid play but i don't want to have to talk because i was
just embarrassed i was nervous you know and so i i did my first play was your good man charlie brown
and i played uh snoopy's cousin tumbleweed
and i would just all i would do because he wasn't actually in the play they just sort of
all right shane doesn't want to say anything so i just would roll across the stage like a tumbleweed
once in a while and it was oh ridiculous and then three days before the show opened
they the guy that was playing snoopy got kicked out and then the director looked at me and was
like shane we we need you man you got it you got to do this we open in three days
and so i had so i was like uh i didn't really i didn't really have the ability to say no so anyway
i did i did snoopy in in the response from the audience and just the way the way the expression
the way it made me feel the girls you know the whole thing it was uh it was it kind of i was
hooked now i thought i was awesome right and i was like oh my god i'm really i'm really good at
this and then i've you know maybe about 10 years ago or so i saw a vhs tape of it i was terrible
i was i was terrible i mean what but that being said i didn't know at the time i mean you know i
guess the expectation was pretty low or something but you was a young guy you was pretty young when
you done that right i was like 13 14 and then and then i just really developed into a really you
know a really good actor by the time i graduated from high school i i got a full ride scholarship
to go study um i studied at a liberal arts college the same actually the same college that leela
went to who played we both went to whitman college in walla walla washington the you know strange
little town in the south uh east of washington state and then um and then i studied in london and
uh at a place called lambda which is one of the best joints on earth really to study acting and um
and then that's where i booked my first my first film and and then kind of the rest is history yeah
man um you you spoke about my age and i'll tell you this are you familiar with layla's birthday
leela's birthday i know i don't know her i can't remember her actual birthday but i know that she's
she's about three years younger than i am me and her born on the exact same day the exact same year
oh so you're like 42 41 41 okay yeah so i'm right there with you i grew up during the michael j
jackson dance era but i got to give you credit and courage ain't nobody want to see me dance
cme dance will be like seeing a slug on ice skates it just ain't happening the right way
you want to happen so um dancing wasn't going to be my thing but i'm very glad that it was a way
to catapult you into doing some great artwork but besides your acting you're doing producing you're
doing animation you're writing and you're talking about doing reality tv talk about how the arts has
expanded your diversity in creating entertainment absolutely well i think you know listen i think
when when somebody has an artistic heart like you do like i do right um sometimes we we find we feel
like okay so then i'm going to be a a dancer i'm going to be an actor i'm going to be a writer i'm
going to be a director i'm going to be a a graphic artist i'm going to be a painter like people
people sort of jump into a certain category of what kind of artist they are but the truth is is
that if you scratch that itch a little bit a lot of the arts kind of speak to the same part of your
brain and your soul you know like for me writing when i sit down and write something and i really
craft something and put my heart soul into it i get just as much out of that as i do for my acting
um sure sometimes even more because you know with that with acting i'm i'm limited to the parameters
of what's handed to me right what i mean like like i'm not you listen just a quick little story which
will kind of be interesting to some some people who may watch this like when i first auditioned
for the show i auditioned for tommy right really yeah and and i think most people would would agree
that like they they're not going to look at me and go oh it's tommy you know but that being
said i'll be honest with you if you met joe sakura in life and you talk to him for a minute he's not
like tommy either you know he's he's definitely created a character which is incredible and right
um so so that's when i went and met courtney and all that but right away it was kind of like a bit
of an organ reject for me where it was like this isn't really my casting right um and then i got
a few weeks later i came back for greg knox which which was angela's boyfriend right um and that was
a little closer maybe a little too squeaky clean you know sort of thing but but andy dean nailed it
and then i got this the breakdown for cooper sacks and and here's the thing that's interesting
as soon as it said he's a prick he's uh you know he's privileged um
uh smug like all the sort of things that that that it kind of laid out about him i
was like oh this is my part and and it's funny because i i don't really think that
i'm any of those things i'm not like some highly educated highly privileged dude but
that's irrelevant man when i walk in the door and i open my mouth and that's what people see and so
that's why i was like okay this is my casting this is like my first circle of casting you know
i can of course branch out do other things but immediately that's how people see me
and that's a that's a great weapon to have and sometimes also it can be a hindrance because
a lot of people want to want to do other stuff so my point is is as a writer i can write anything i
want there's sky's the limit when it comes to my acting until i'm a huge star and and people can
and people go what do you want to do will this build we'll build something around you or offers
start coming in and i can just go no no i don't want to do that i want to be i want to do this
and people go yeah hey we got shane let's just make it happen until that comes god willing um
i'm kind of you know to a degree i i have to work with what's what's handed to me i can't you know
what i mean so like i'm not writing cooper sax right right now granted it is a marriage because
the writers see me and see what i'm doing with the part and so then they write to my strengths
and we kind of like it becomes a dance between me and the writing team um sort of as their character
organically grows over the years but mostly it's the writers you know and from what i've learned um
a lot of actors tend to play the complete opposite of who they are extremely well
um i know a lot of people who've said that they could never envision themselves being a villain
you just told us and everybody that you're not a prick but the character you play um you was able
to embody him to a point where you made the audience extremely polarized they loved you
they hated you and now looks like they're going to be loving you again and we'll get to that um
later on in this interview and i you know that's a testament to the work you put in in your craft
but for you to say you're not a big star hold on let me pump the brakes on you on that one
you've been acting you started in private ryan in 1998 and from then until now you're credited with
almost 60 different projects and so i had to do some digging mr shane i found something you did in
2003 let's take a quick look at it we should have seen you coming because this was you in the making
three friends must face a shadow from the past
talk to me that is black cadillac from 2003 you played scott and
hey i can look at that until you was ready to do something you was knocking on the door hollywood
like let me on in there talk to me a little bit about what your experience was doing that film
man that was so much fun that was maybe my second time starring in a movie like as the lead
character and um it it was just so much fun to to really get the opportunity to um to really craft
a can you started we have a little hiccup there sorry about that oh it's all right are we back
yep yeah so just getting the opportunity to you know craft a whole character arc and um
relationships and and to carry a movie you know to carry a movie like that was so much fun and the
director john marlowski who also wrote it uh is a good friend and um jason doering who played my
little brother he's he's got an incredible career going for him too from veronica mars to uh that
vampire immortal show i can't remember the name of it the originals maybe or something like that
but um you know they they've uh and then obviously you know randy quaid who's who's infamous at this
point but but we had a we had a great time and um and i actually think most people that have
seen that movie it kind of has the cult following people really enjoyed it and like like another you
know i've done a couple of these movies that it's weird you know when you do um you think
and i can't tell you man most actors have these moments many many times in their life where they
they do something and they're like okay this is the thing that's gonna put me on the map and
you just know it you're just like oh this is it man i'm killing this part i'm putting everything
into it wait till people get a load of me and then and then and then you know nothing happens and um
and so there's a little bit of you know there's a little bit of right
place right time for some things i mean same thing with power right like
power was very unique in the stars in the stars universe stars hadn't produced anything like
power they were doing like da vinci's demons and spartacus and outlander outlander and spanish
queen and black sales pirate shows and it was like all kinds of like historical dramas and then all
of a sudden they do a contemporary urban you know drama with sex and violence and drugs and all that
kind of stuff and and it's their it puts them on the map right so you just you know you just never
know you never know i mean we were when this thing started we were just hoping to get it you know
a couple seasons and just hoping that you know we caught an audience we had no idea
it and it turned out well and that's that's a good transition point to get me onto you onto that
roadmap of power so talk to me a little bit about like when how do you go about selecting the roles
you play so what was it that made you say hmm this cooper sax i think i can do this what was the
mindset for you to select that role well i think the most important approach for me when it comes
to cooper sacks is um is to not judge him okay you know and i think that's true for a lot of the a
lot of these dark hero sort of characters i'm not saying that i'm a dark hero i'm kind of more like
um you know an antagonist or whatever but but in reality every character is the hero of their own
story nobody nobody in life very few people i would think are actually evil right most people
think i'm the good guy and they justify their behavior exactly so it's a matter of thinking
that i'm right i just think i'm i just kind of have i have that arrogance but i don't go
around going cooper sacks is arrogant it's nobody nobody goes i'm arrogant what they do is they go
i'm smarter than all these guys and they just kind of know that they're smarter than them and
they just think they just kind of have better ideas and they feel justified in their behavior
and so that's how i have to approach cooper sacks he thinks he's doing he thinks he's doing
everything right no in the grand scheme of things he doesn't he doesn't think he's a jerk he just
is you know so so for me my approach to him is i i love him i'm like man this guy's this guy's doing
everything right and he's making good choices and um and it's the system that's broken it's not him
you know and right and so so that justification is the only way i can play it because if i judge him
then i'm gonna have then as an actor when i play cooper sacks i've gotta i've gotta kind of act
at something okay you know what i mean right i completely understand what you're saying
it's like if you hate for example for a random example if you're playing donald trump and you
hate donald trump then how do you play that part other than to just mock it you know what i mean
how do you how do you really sink into it and make it believable that you're playing that character
if you're completely judging it the whole time so you got to kind of twist your mind to kind of
maybe that's a bad example you're going kind of donald trump maybe but but i'm going i'm going
if you if you spray tan me properly add 60 more pounds to me give me that nice funny hair dude
even though i hate his ass i can show you a good donald trump yeah probably you have to do it you
have to do it by not by not judging him by going hey i'm just i'm donald trump i own the world
everything this is he actually just believes those things he doesn't think he's an [ __ ] he just is