Columbia Pictures/MGM
The last time I spoke to Jake Johnson, the year was 2020, it was the middle of the pandemic, and he was promoting a quickly axed cartoon on Netflix in which he voiced a crotchety basketball coach.
Needless to say, a lot has changed since then, as Johnson recently returned to the Post Credit Podcast as a director, as his first feature film Self Reliance is set to hit Hulu on January 12.
When Johnson and I spoke the last time, he told me some incredible behind-the-scenes stories about Get Him to the Greek, so this time I hoped he’d do the same for 21 Jump Street, and boy did he deliver by telling the tale of him and Rob Riggle going on a 40 hour bender that he calls one of the “wildest” times of his life.
“I was at the hotel pool by myself and I see this really nice suburban guy, and he walks up and he goes, ‘Hey, you Jake?’ And it was Rob Riggle,” Johnson begins.
“And he goes, ‘Hey, I’m Rob Riggle — you’re in this movie too, friend? What are you up to? Are you here alone?”
Johnson says that Riggle then introduced him to his ‘lovely’ wife before heading out to take her to the airport at 12 and suggesting, “Perhaps we’ll get lunch” when he returns.
From there, however, chaos ensued. 40 hours of it, in fact.
“At 12:01, there was a pounding on my door like I was being attacked. And I open the door and Riggle is standing there with moonshine, and he’s like ‘This moonshine came from Channing [Tatum] — let’s go!’” Johnson told us.
“And he and I partied for, I think, 40 hours straight. And I just remember there was a moment where it was like 6 in the morning, we’re both either naked or in a towel, in a sauna, and I had these glimpses of blacking out where I’m like, ‘This is the wildest 40 hours I’ve had in a while.'”
Johnson’s latest film Self Reliance, which marks his directorial debut, will be hitting Hulu on Friday, January 12. In addition to himself in the lead role, Self Reliance stars Anna Kendrick, Natalie Morales, Mary Holland, Emily Hampshire, Christopher Lloyd, and Wayne Brady.
You can check out the official trailer for Self Reliance below.