Ben Patrick Johnson Goes from Sexy to Serious

by Chris Freeman

If you watch TV or go to the movies, you probably hear Ben Patrick Johnson’s unmistakable, basso-profundo voice every day. With a studio at home and no need for makeup or costumes — Johnson acknowledges that voice-over work is “kind of a dream job. It’s golden handcuffs — the work’s not overly taxing, but I am constantly on call. I might record what we think is a final version at noon; at 3, we hear from the network that they want changes and that the finished product has to go out at 7. I have learned to be easy to work with and continually available. Otherwise, they will go to another actor. “

But his top-of-the-game voice-over career is only one part of him. Johnson is also a gay rights activist. And he’s a novelist.

An acute observer, Johnson says, “writing is my way of communicating with the world.” Since 2002, he has published three semi-autobiographical, L.A.-based novels: In and Out in Hollywood, One Size Fits All and Third and Heaven. Johnson is “a gay man who’s lived in West Hollywood over 15 years. I write what I know. I’m an advocate on behalf of human rights, especially LGBT civil rights. But that’s not all I am.”

If The Rains Don’t Cleanse, his latest novel, is being published this month by Havenhurst Books. Rains is a complete departure for him. It’s biographical fiction, based on his parents’ years as missionaries in Congo at the end of imperialism. This is heavy stuff—very Heart of Darkness. “I think we’re all larger than the categories we occupy. I am certainly not turning my back on gay people or issues. I just know that there are other things of importance to me—that’s what I’m working on with Rains.”

The novel—a moving, powerful journey through some of the most important times and locations in the 20th century—is a hybrid of truth and fiction. “I grew up with these amazing family stories, but they were in bits and pieces. I wanted to pull them together. But as happens with folklore, things grow, and hyperbole comes in to the mix. I’ve used creative imagination and research to fill in the blanks.”

The book has had two lives—one 10 years ago and another this year, when he decided it was time to send it out into the world. Johnson had shelved the manuscript because the timing wasn’t right. First, he was told it wasn’t marketable. Then, Barbara Kingsolver’s Poisonwood Bible came out. A huge best-seller, Kingsolver’s book “was thematically similar to my novel, so it became ‘it’s been done.’ I put it away, but it tugged at me.

“I wanted to publish Rains while my parents were alive so they could have some recognition of their years of service to humanity, but my father died last year,” Johnson says. He went back to the manuscript, sharpened it and reshaped it. He worked closely with his mother, the woman behind his protagonist, Eva Dunagan, to get it right. “I didn’t want to make Eva a saint. The character now feels more real, more grounded, less conflicted. She’s more useful in getting at the themes of the book—she’s cooler, less rigid, more likable.”

Congo is still one of the most troubled places in Africa, so stories like this one continue to matter. Rains takes the colonial, missionary situation and personalizes it. Johnson shows “how it happens in the real world. Granted, we need to see the big picture, but I think it’s also very important to look at it from the ground level, from the point of view of the individuals involved.”

Getting serious makes the hunky Johnson a little apprehensive: “I feel that with Rains, I am moving away from the ‘shirt-off’ part of my career. Taking off my shirt (or more) for a magazine or a movie is a great way to get attention, but once you have their attention, then what? How do you make that useful to yourself?”

People will undoubtedly be surprised by Johnson’s serious side. He’s grown into this complex subject matter very nicely.

“I’ve reached a place in my life that I want to talk about bigger questions—faith, social roles, the things I’ve talked about in Rains. I’m asking people to take me at face value—not this face, but the face of what I have to say.”

the details

Johnson will emcee the CSW Mainstage
June 13-14
benpatrickjohnson.com