Jack
Johnson
(born April 7, 1987) in Los Angeles, California is an
American actor whose main claim to fame is his performance
as Will Robinson in the 1998 movie, Lost in Space.
Before
Jack Johnson perfected his rock star ways, he was a champion
surfer on the professional route, with a sponsorship with
Quicksilver. It was a life that was second nature for the
Hawaiian native, for he began chasing waves as a toddler,
and by the time he was 17, he was an outstanding athlete on
the pipeline. However, Johnson was also testing his other
creative outlets -- one being film and the other being
music.
It was during his college years as a film student at
University of California at Santa Barbara when Johnson began
writing songs. He and old mates Chris Malloy and Emmett
Malloy produced a surf cinema documentary entitled Thicker
Than Water, in turn spotlighting Johnson as a talented
cinematographer as well as a burgeoning singer/songwriter.
His peers in and around the surf circuit praised his work,
and Thicker Than Water received props in Surfer magazine for
Video of the Year during 2000. The follow-up surf flick The
September Sessions also earned the Adobe Highlight Award at
the ESPN Film Festival that same year.
Still, Johnson steered away from a blossoming pro sports
career and stuck with music -- something that would soon
earn him additional honors. G. Love & Special Sauce quickly
took notice to Johnson's lazy blues stylings, which also
molded folk and hip-hop for a modern rock twist, and
included Johnson on "Rodeo Clowns" from G. Love's 1999
release Philadelphonic. Johnson's four-track demo also
caught the ears of Ben Harper's right-hand man, J.P. Plunier.
This was surely mind-blowing for Johnson, for Harper's
college rock mainstay Fight for Your Mind was one of his
favourites and remained an inspiration. Aside from Plunier's
production work, Harper also added his lap steel guitar work
on Johnson's sultry debut, Brushfire Fairytales (Enjoy
Records), in winter 2001.
Two co-headlining tours followed throughout spring and
summer 2002; Johnson's sophomore effort, On and On, appeared
in May 2003. Stateside dates with Harper followed in June
and July. A third album, In Between Dreams arrived in March
2005, narrowly missing the top of the Billboard album chart
in the process. Johnson earned two Brit Awards for In
Between Dreams: International Male Solo Artist and
International Breakthrough Act. In February, Johnson issued
the soundtrack Curious George. Nielsen SoundScan sales
topped at 163,000 copies in its first week of release,
earning Johnson his first-ever number one album on
Billboard's Top 200 and Rock Albums charts.