Interview with 'Lethal Weapon' star Johnathan Fernandez

Johnathan Fernandez, the child of Colombian and Honduran immigrants, has finally made it to the big time!

He was born in New York City and raised in Pennsylvania where his parents moved when he was a child. Fernandez attended Penn State University and majored in Telecommunications and minored in Film. He also began doing comedy at the school.

He now lives in Los Angeles after landing a role on the new Fox series Lethal Weapon. The actor had multiple small roles in various shows and movies before but this is his first major gig so TheCelebrityCafe.com sat down to discuss that new role and much more with him.

TheCelebrityCafe.com: Tell us about your character on the show.

Johnathan Fernandez: His name is Scorsese, well nickname, like Martin Scorsese. So far his real name has not been announced or even conceived of. It’s a mystery of the show.

TCC: That’s interesting.

JF: Yeah, so the office of medical examinations is his day job, because he went to film school at one point. He wrote a script, but we don’t really know what the deal is with it. He eventually became a forensics doctor in the L.A. city morgue. The other detectives there never let him live that part of his past down though so they all call him Scorsese. He’s kind of a nerdy, know-it-all pedantic and he just cracks jokes and makes fun of Murtaugh and all the others. He’s a nerdy goofball and he’s really fun to play.

TCC: So would you say you get to play to your comedic strengths in this role?

JF: Exactly. I think that’s what serendipitously ended up getting me the gig. When I auditioned for the part I think I showed them that I could make the role funnier than they intended it to be.

TCC: So do you feel like this is the big break you’ve been waiting for?

JF: Yeah pretty much. I’ve done a bunch of little stuff before but this one has been my first series role on a big network like Fox and a big production studio like Warner Bros. I couldn’t be anymore grateful for how this has worked and that it has worked out.

TCC: Were you a fan of Lethal Weapon growing up?

JF: Yes. That movie, especially the first one is one of my favorite movies of all time. I know that movie verbatim. So being a part of the show feels like a fantasy dream that I could never have written for myself. My dad has those first two movies on VHS and they probably don’t even work anymore because we watched them and rewound them so many times.

TCC: Is that right?

JF: Yeah and the thing that’s been really crazy is my character didn’t exist in the canon of the movie so I have no pressure to live up to another actor.

TCC: So what would you say is your favorite part of playing in this show?

JF: There’s so many things. It’s really great to go to work and feel like you’re on vacation. Because you’re with people that you really like, everybody is really fun and wants to do a great job. We’re always cracking jokes. When the cameras come on we’re still having a good time. It’s really great to come to work and feel like we’re just hanging out. Also it’s nice to be playing someone who is a bizarre-o world Johnathan Fernandez. He’s really just a quirky goofball which is not too far off from me so it’s nice.

TCC: What’s it like working with Damon Wayans?

JF: It’s really crazy as a person coming from comedy because he is a legend. He’s one of the funniest people of all time. To be able to work with him every day is like ...wow… holy crap I have to be my funniest right now at all time. It’s a little bit of pressure at the end of the day because I really want to make him laugh. I keep a mental note in my head like "oh this really made him laugh." He just really elevates everyone’s game because we all realize he’s one of the funniest people of all time so we’re like let’s keep up. It’s really fun to be working with that guy on the set for sure.

TCC: Who is one of your inspirations when it comes to acting, comedy or just life in general?

JF: Everyone has those stories of when this moment happened I knew I was gonna do this forever and for a long time, at least comedically, I didn’t have that until I saw Eddie Izzard. He had this special on HBO called Dressed to Kill and I remember thinking “what is this man like what is his deal?” He dressed as a drag, a transvestite and he had blonde hair and I was like “what is his deal?” But when I sat back and watched it I never laughed so hard in my life. He’s not just so funny, but so wickedly intelligent. So smart. I just remember watching that and later learning he improvises a lot on set and thinking "wow if I ever do comedy that’s gonna be me." If I could ever be in a scene with that guy it would be a dream come true.

TCC: Wow, I had all these people in mind, guessing who your answer was going to be, but I never would have guessed that.

JF: Yeah I’ve seen a bunch of stand-up. Obviously Eddie Murphy is great and you have people like Will Ferrell who are great comedic actors, but at the end of the day it really comes down to Eddie Izzard who really strikes to the core of how I want to be comedically and professionally.

TCC: What made you want to go to college and how did it influence your career?

JF: It’s been a really funny road for me because my parents are immigrants. I’m first generation here. My father is Honduran and my mother is Colombian. I think I was one of the first if not to the first out of my family to go to college. It became a foregone conclusion that it was something I was going to do because my parents always instilled that in me. When sophomore and junior year came around [high school] I didn’t know what I was going to do but I knew I was going to go to college. Originally I thought I was going to do art school because I was into illustrating. Then I thought I would care more about being a student athlete because I was doing track and soccer. Then I realized I didn’t know what I wanted to do and I chose Penn State because it had a huge liberal arts college that has so many options of what can be done.  I went there, changed my major unofficially 10,000 times. Because of the contacts I made in college it led me on the career path that I am now. If for nothing else college is a good tool for throwing a bunch of stimuli at you to figure out what you really want to do. Or at least filling up the list of what you don’t want to do because that’s just as valuable.

TCC: So how did you get involved in improv comedy while in college?

JF: Well I wasn’t always the class clown growing up, but I was always cracking jokes. So I always had that element in me but in college there was no improv team at all. So what happened is this guy named Jeff Hornburg sent out a big mass email saying, “hey I want to do some improve, I don’t know how big it’ll be but if you’re interested come by this building on campus. I showed up. There was like 10 people there. We started talking about Who’s Line is it Anyway and how much we like the show. We started doing a bunch of short games from it and doing that. I loved it. Once I graduated, my friend told me of UCB (United Comedy Brigade) and told me to show up for an audition there. When I go there they wanted people who could impersonate character or cartoons that they didn’t necessarily look like at all. That was perfect for me, I did Patrick Warburton, Smeagol from Lord of the Rings and Professor Frink from The Simpsons. I got a call back from Matt Walsh himself and booked it and eventually I started taking improv classes there.

TCC: You’re living out in L.A. now because of the show right?

JF: Yup.

TCC: How do you like it compared to living in New York?

JF: I Like it a lot actually. You know the problem is New Yorkers have a chip on their shoulders when it comes to L.A. specifically And I think I figured it out. The crux of it is New Yorkers are afraid of making L.A. more than New York. And so because of that they’re so ready to talk s**t on it. But I don't know now that I’m out here with this lovely job and my beautiful wife and we live here in Santa Monica and the beach and stuff I’m like … New York is fine but it can go suck an egg honestly. I do love New York but it’s just different out here. You can’t compare them. You don’t have to like one over the other. You got to take them each for what their worth and enjoy them.

TCC: How do you like to spend your spare time? What are your hobbies and such?

JF: I guess around here we’re Angelenos and we’ve been going on hikes every weekend. We’ve been walking around Santa Monica a lot. I haven’t taken up surfing yet but that’s definitely on the horizon for me. I have a Harley so I’ve been driving that around a lot up and down the coast [Pacific Coast Highway]. I play a lot of soccer, watch a lot of soccer and I like to play video games too. So a lot of that and I guess just learning what Angeles life is all about. I’m probably the first person in history to ever call it Angeles without Los in front of it. But yeah, watching movies, hiking, soccer, riding the Harley, I guess that pretty much sums me up.

TCC: What are your future goals and ambitions?

JF: It’s funny to re-calibrate the goal after you reach the big one, because being a series regular on a show has been a big one for me. Now, I just want to play different roles. I want to play in movies. I been in a few but I want to get some more meaty roles and kind of just figure out the next step in my career. Audition for a bunch of stuff and get some screenplays produced that I’ve been working on. I’m probably one of the few people on the show though that doesn’t have any plans for the hiatus. Everyone’s doing this and that and I’m kind of like I guess we’ll just see what happens. It’s interesting just going with the flow

TCC: So nothing planned in the next few weeks or months?

JF: Well I have a lot of meetings. Various meetings with companies like AOL, IFC also. But all that stuff is just in the infant stages so it’s hard to pinpoint what’s going to be going on. I do have a fashion line that I’m working on and that I’m hoping to launch in the next couple of months.

You can catch Fernandez in Lethal Weapon airing on Fox Wednesdays at 8 p.m. and see him as a guest star on Bull: Dressed to Kill on CBS (original air date April 4, 2017).