When was the last time you got to play with a white Bengal tiger? Right. Most people would laugh if you asked them that question, they wouldn’t even think you were serious. But not Lize (pronounced like “fleecy”) Johnston, she not only got the opportunity to play with the young cuddly cat, but she got paid while she did it. Originally the voice used in the animation of the tiger cub Toby’s mouth for the live-action feature Toby’s Big Adventure, she shares the big screen with a now teen-age Toby in its sequel Toby Goes to Camp, as he goes on his second animal adventure – this time, to a kids’ performing arts summer camp. Lize describes the movie as Glee meets Homeward Bound. Her character, Lynette, is one of the two camp counselors who are both pretty bad at their jobs, but fortunately, the owners of the camp are there to pick up the slack.
Lize has worked steadily as an actor since she decided to give up software development and become a full time thespian. That’s quite a drastic move as far as careers go. One deals with binary language and the other, acting, is totally immersed in the emotional side of life: numbers vs. feelings. Apparently Ms. Johnston made the switch very smoothly. Her most recent roles include everything from a crack addict for an anti-trafficking project that garnered almost a million views in its first week, to a young mom dying of cancer, to the sweet yet sarcastic and deliberately ignorant girlfriend of a New York mobster, set in Brooklyn and filmed on the CBS back lot in LA.
Lize had always loved acting since she was young, and was in her first musical at 15 and then took a lead role in a local stage production and after that, she was hooked. Where does the computer science fit in to the picture? Well, Lize is very practical and she simply loves that kind of work too, but once she decided to make acting her life career, she studied at a number of prestigious schools in Sydney, New York and LA, and then decided to top it all off with a Master of Fine Arts degree from Harvard University. Get out of the way, everybody; when Lize makes her mind up to do something – it’s going to get done in the most thorough way possible.
And that’s just the kind of person Lize Johnston is. She does things right, including all of her roles on stage and in the movies. Maybe that’s why she’s in such high demand.
