Johan Wester

Johan Wester grew up in Linghem, Linköping, Sweden and first acted as a child in a theater production on his spare-time between soccer and dancing. His older sister had been first to sign up and of course he wanted to do it as well. A natural performer from an early age, mimicking Grease in front of the television, it not only sparked the flame for the performing arts but it also taught him to speak English by singing along to the songs. Johan has danced all his life and competitively from the age of 9. He became one of the top ranked youths in a Swedish National Swing Dance, with his first national championship competed at the age of 14. Dancing subdued acting for a time until music entered his life. Being able to sing he also learned to play drums and guitar while in middle school and applied for the musical arts program in high school to which he was accepted. In high school (Folkungaskolan, Musikgymnasiet) the acting flame was reignited with performing in two productions on stage in front of sold out seats. Johan decided to take acting as an elective course in between the music classes and regular studies. Another acting hiatus came in his late teens when business entered his life and he eventually managed several businesses before realizing that no ordinary job could ever quench the thirst that still remained for acting and performing. After a few years of health issues in his early 20's Johan left Sweden for a trip to Los Angeles in October 2011, being closer to 24 than 21 as was initially planned for said trip. That seems to have been perfect timing since he was tossed into the movie business, acting in front of the camera in the feature drama, Hello Herman (2012), after merely 48 hours of arriving in LA. Since then he has kept on going and went from nothing to a supporting role in the feature comedy Hollywood Hostel (2014) and above all the starring lead in the feature dark comedy, Love of Mass Destruction (2015), in 4 months time. Johan garnered interest from agents in Hollywood and got sponsored to an O1-B visa of extraordinary talent. Sadly Johan got stuck in this process for 2 years, after initial approval, due to not being previously famous in his own country and hasn't been back in L.A. since. Instead of letting it break him he started over in the Swedish film and television industry during the waiting period of his final visa result. Applying the same energy and tenacity as in L.A. Johan worked up some speed and reputation in the comparably small Swedish market working on productions like the popular television shows, Pappas pengar (2012), Tjockare än vatten (2014), Torpederna (2014), Partaj är tillbaka (2014) and Min hemlighet (2015) as well as features like Something Must Break (2014) which won several prestigious awards and the feature Karawane (2015). All the while participating in leads and supporting roles in several short films. Fast forwarding to 2016 Johan left Sweden for the North American film market yet again. This time he lived and worked for a year in "Hollywood north", Toronto, Canada. Working with a local agency of 30 years experience, Johan managed to work on productions like the feature films, xXx: Return of Xander Cage (2017) and Downsizing (2017) (as Matt Damon's double) as well as the TV shows Reign (2013), Conviction (2016) and Alias Grace (2017) working alongside the stars of Hollywoood. Johan got cast as a leading role in a show on Discovery Networks but chose to return to Sweden when another bureaucracy setback yet again halted his progress. Not being a permanent resident of Canada he wasn't allowed to take on this role due to a tax paper technicality. Johan is working in the Australian acting markets 2017-2018, based out of Sydney.