Interview: Johnny Berchtold
Known for his popular TikTok videos, which mostly depict him poking fun at classic movie tropes and have amassed hundreds of millions of views, Johnny Berchtold has been quietly building a strong, varied filmography made up of impressive leading performances in a number of independent films, including the critically acclaimed sci-fi drama A Hard Problem and the haunting, searing spiritual drama The Forbidden Wish. In addition to indie films, Berchtold has also been working with a number of screen legends, such as Julia Roberts in Starz show Gaslit and Kathryn Hahn in Hulu series Tiny Beautiful Things, further establishing his name in the film industry and cementing his status as one of the most exciting new names to watch today.
For Berchtold, who also counts popular cult series The Wilds and indie horror film Snow Falls as part of his eclectic filmography, his career has been more of a marathon rather than a full-on sprint. “I have been out here for almost 10 years,” he says. “It didn’t happen overnight for me, but I feel with every single thing that I’ve done, you just start to see those connections come together in the way that they need to. I like to credit that to playing the long game. As much as I wish that it did happen overnight, I’m so grateful for the journey. I can look back at that arc of like, ‘Oh, yeah, I remember that weird little basement project that I did that will never see the light of day.’ But I learned something on this project that helped me on the next thing and so on. I’m grateful for that.”
In the highly acclaimed series Gaslit, Berchtold shares the screen with none other than Hollywood icon Roberts, portraying the complicated dynamic between mother and son amidst the Watergate scandal. As the son of Roberts’s character, Berchtold delivers a performance brimming with emotional depth, capturing the complex bond between parent and child against the backdrop of one of the most infamous political scandals in American history. Discussing his work with Roberts, Berchtold has nothing but praise for the actress, who he affectionately refers to as Mama Roberts. “It was my first time back on a set post-COVID,” he reveals. “We shot everything that I did with her all in one day. We were shooting in this really old abandoned hospital that was probably haunted. So I’m sitting there, waiting to be called, and they were like, ‘Okay, Johnny, we’re ready for you.’ And I kid you not, I turn the corner and directly run into Julia Roberts. She burst out into laughter and it was the iconic Julia Roberts smile and laugh. We improvised a lot during filming, and it was one of the best things where you show up, you get to do the work and it just so happens that the work involves Julia Roberts. It was a really awesome experience.”
In the heartwarming Netflix film Dog Gone, Berchtold embarks on an emotional journey alongside Rob Lowe, traversing the rugged terrain of the Appalachian trail in search of a beloved lost dog. Against the backdrop of breathtaking landscapes and the trials of the wilderness, Berchtold delivers a performance brimming with heart and authenticity, capturing the unbreakable bond between man and his four-legged companion. “They flew me out there a week before shooting started to literally become best friends with the dogs,” he reveals, mentioning that two dogs were brought on to portray the film’s titular dog. “I showed up to this ranch, the dogs are all hanging out. And there I was like the new kid on the block.” Landing the role in the film proved to be challenging for Berchtold, although not for the reason audiences would initially expect. “I never revealed this but I’m allergic to dogs,” he reveals with a laugh. “I just did not tell a single soul, but everything was fine. Maybe I’m not so allergic anymore!”
The process of making Dog Gone was a learning experience for Berchtold, and not just because he had to learn how to work with a dog. The film, which spent a number of days as the #1 movie on Netflix worldwide, exposed him to a brand new, larger audience, clocking in millions of hours of views since its debut. “There was a feeling that arose that I was not expecting,” he says. “I just had never been made aware of something that I was in that was watched by that many people and that was so easily accessible to a lot of people. It was really, really overwhelming. I was like, ‘Okay, let me try to block this out as much as possible.’ It was something that I just didn’t expect. Thank God for my fiancé Casey [Bailey], who has been there every step of the way. She was like, ‘You should feel really, really good,’ and I was like, ‘I don’t know why it’s freaking me out. It’s really scary and it’s not making me feel good.’ That’s something that I could never have foreseen because this is the dream. I get to work, I get to do the thing, and it was something I had to work through because making that film was so wonderful. I love the process of making something. You put a lot of work and passion into it. It is sort of a bubble, like this thing only you and a specific group of people understand. And then the second it comes out, the bubble bursts and it’s not yours anymore. Everyone can watch it and perceive it. It’s such a weird thing but I’m learning to enjoy it.”
Berchtold had to learn how to adapt quickly, as his next leading role came shortly after in the form of Blumhouse film The Passenger, a micro-thriller that follows a man who is forced to face his fears and confront his troubled past after his co-worker snaps and goes on a violent killing spree. He already had an existing relationship with the studio and its CEO Jason Blum; the two initially collaborated on a number of funny Zoom videos during the pandemic that set the stage for him to finally be cast in a Blumhouse project. “I’ll tell you, that was such an interesting time on the internet, obviously for many, many reasons,” he reveals. Berchtold’s videos – which already had a dedicated fanbase prior to 2020 – largely caught on to an even wider audience during the pandemic, including Blum, who reached out to him during that period. “All of a sudden I had the opportunity to make videos with Jason Blum,” he says. “I was like, ‘What’s going on? I don’t know what’s happening here.’ I’m such a fan of their movies. Anyone who knows even the smallest bit of me knows how big of a deal this was for me. To finally work at Blumhouse was unbelievable.”
While Berchtold had a pre-existing relationship with Blum prior to his casting in the film, he still had to take part in a number of auditions prior to landing the role, a process that was made even more difficult – and not easy, as one would originally think – by the fact that his fiancé Casey Bailey was the casting assistant on the film. “I have been auditioning for her team, J McAlary and Matt Nelson, for years,” he reveals. “I had been auditioning for this current slate of movies that Blumhouse was doing and I had gotten those auditions through my team but hadn’t booked any. By the way, I’ve been auditioning for Casey’s bosses for six years now! And she is the toughest critic of all. She’s amazing at her job, but we’ve never gotten to work together, and she’s straight up with me too. But we have a rule; If I am auditioning for a project that she’s on, we have to keep it as separate as possible. I’m grateful for her bosses bringing me in all those years prior. It was magic when Casey joined the team because she’s also a horror fan too,” Berchtold pauses to praise Bailey, who has also worked in the casting department for other Blumhouse projects such as Torn Hearts, Unseen and A House on the Bayou, as well Kevin Costner‘s upcoming epic Horizon: An American Saga. “It was just a beautiful thing and they work so well together. I’m so proud of her.”
“So I did my tape with someone else,” he continues. “And I sent it in. I think, from the get-go, I was on Carter’s radar; we found out that he was interested in my tape, and I did something really weird in the tape. It was the scene when he gets a phone call from his mom and I made the ringtone the Golden Girls theme song for some reason. I was like, ‘This makes sense to me in my head. I hope it translates.’ Later on, I found out it did and I think we tried to get it too for the movie. I just remember reading the script and being like, ‘Oh my god.’ Look, I’m not someone who has the authority to be like, ‘I need to do this. I’m doing this.’ I can’t make that decision, but I read it and I was like, ‘This is the thing that I have dreamed about for so long.’ And so I very vividly remember the day I found out that Carter loved what I did and wanted me as Randy. It was just so surreal.” Berchtold reveals he also received a text from Blum the day he was cast in the project. “I found out I got the part and I got a text from him,” he says. “All it said was just, ‘Happy?’ I was so grateful. It just seemed to me that the stars aligned on a dream of mine.”
One of the perks of working on the film was the experience of collaborating with Kyle Gallner, who Berchtold has been a fan of since he was a child, as well as director Smith. “[Kyle] was so pivotal in what I was watching,” he recalls. “And not to mention The Ruins that Carter did. When I saw it, I was like, ‘This is the nastiest shit I’ve ever seen. I love it!’ To finally go on a set and be with those people… It was surreal.” Berchtold also recalls a previous experience he shared with co-star Liza Weil years before The Passenger. “I was a background extra on the pilot episode of How to Get Away with Murder,” he shares. “And we had an interaction that was so specific where she asked me, in the nicest way, if she could use my shoulder to put her high heel on. I was like, ‘Absolutely!’ That was the first thing I told her when I met her, and it was just such a full circle, pinch me moment.”
While The Passenger initially enjoyed a quiet release during the pandemic, with both Berchtold and Gallner forbidden from discussing the project at the time, it has since exploded in popularity, thanks to a recent streaming release on Prime Video that allowed it to find a wider audience. Asked if he thinks the film fits in with the larger Blumhouse pantheon, Berchtold reveals that he doesn’t. “When I first read it, I thought, ‘This seems so different than what Blumhouse usually puts out,'” he explains. “But they like Carter. They took a risk on letting him tell this story because I think they originally wanted him to do a different movie, and he was like, ‘Could I actually bring this script to you?’ and they were like, ‘Actually yeah, we trust you.’ That was really cool of them. And what Carter was able to do by putting his touch, his visuals, his themes on to an already really interesting story… I couldn’t believe that I got to just play around with that and be Kyle Gallner’s punching bag for an hour and a half. It was crazy.”
It was an experience that ended up bonding them for life, according to Berchtold, who reveals the two are still in touch to this day. “I love him with all my heart,” he says. “Just doing this movie with him was a masterclass. I learned so much. I became a better performer. He has also become my big brother in the industry. I call him up when I’m spiraling and he’s usually spiraling at the same time. So we get to just spiral together. He’s given me such incredible advice because he’s someone I’ve always looked up to. He tells me that the spiraling never ends. So get used to it so I’m like, okay, that’s okay.” Berchtold recalls a specific experience involving Nicolas Cage in New Orleans, where The Passenger was filmed, that brought them even closer. “I remember – and this would bond anyone – we were taking a nighttime stroll in New Orleans because we just wanted to hang out and talk,” he recalls. “And in the dead of night, there’s no one around us, a man in a neon green track suit walks past us and we both realize its Nicolas Cage. He was shooting Renfield at the time and we both go, ‘That’s Nicolas Cage.’ It was just one of those moments that had us bonding more and more.”
He also has a number of projects in the pipeline, including several projects he still cannot talk about. “There are a couple movies that I’ve done that are not in the stratosphere and that nobody knows about,” he says. It has also been recently announced that he has joined the cast of Reacher season 3 as a series regular, playing the character of Richard Beck. “I’ve never been on a project like this before,” he gushes. “It’s a blast and so well oiled. Alan Ritchson is the man.” Berchtold also has a short film he wrote, produced and starred in that has just completed production, although he can’t share any details just yet. “It’s about a topic that I have not seen any movies really touch on yet,” he reveals. “And you may be surprised to find out it is not a horror movie. I don’t know how that happened, but there was a moment during filming when they put the slate in front of me and the title of the thing that I wrote was on the slate. These people had come together to film this thing that literally came out of me typing on my keyboard and it was a very overwhelming experience in the best way. I am so excited to do more of that. I learned that I love to write and so I hope to have more opportunities where scripts I’ve written get made. I am really proud of the work that we did and the team that assembled together to make that happen, some really, really amazing people. I’m excited to do more of that and I’m excited for people to see it too.”
As for the near future, Berchtold can next be seen opposite Midnight Mass star Igby Rigney in indie Charmers from director Matt Berns, a comedy that follows two distant high school brothers who are left alone at their parents’ vacation home and find themselves forever changed over the course of a whirlwind weekend after a chance encounter with a woman named Lavender. “We filmed it in 10 days in Cannon Beach, Oregon where they shot Twilight and The Goonies,” he reveals. “We shot in this house and it was 10 days of just the most delicious independent filmmaking. We had to shoot a lot in the only usable bathroom on set and there was nothing more humbling. But it was just really, really wonderful to shoot with one of my closest friends. That’s what we’re all striving to do; work with our friends.” And after that? He’s just taking it one step at a time, he says. “Most of my life is just winging it anyway.”
The Passenger is now streaming on Prime Video.