Magic Johnson

Landing in Genoa City has been a dream job for Y&R’s Tyler Johnson

- Devin Owens

Growing up in Maryland, Tyler Johnson found his love of performing early. “I used to put on plays with my brother,” Johnson shares. “I did all of the roles. I was the set decorator, I was the director, I was the casting agent, and since I only had one person to cast, my brother, I had a very small casting pool. I remember we did Stone Soup and he had to play the elderly lady. I had him dress up and God bless him for it.” From there, Johnson began acting professionally. “I did commercials. I did the I Love Virginia commercial,” he recounts. “I did a four-month run in Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You. I was doing some modeling as a wee lad.”

When he got to high school, however, Johnson found other interests. “At that point, I was very much trying to find myself and so I didn’t do much by way of expression during the first three years,” Johnson recalls. “When I got to senior year, I started to look toward the future.” At the time, that meant a more traditional life path. “I was sort of driven by my mother to go to Penn State,” he explains. “While I was there, I wasn’t having the greatest time. I had a finance scholarship and I was learning all about the ins and outs of finance. I thought, ‘This is not something I’m interested in.’ And then at a Christmas party during my first year at Penn State, one of my dad’s friends was a casting director out of New York City and she thought I should send some pictures to her. I was hesitant, my father was not, so he sent photos along to her.”