This young and rising star has been off of the hit soap opera General Hospital for less than a year, and he is already on his way to the big time.
He received critical praise for his portrayal of Michelle Pheiffer's son in The Deep End of The Ocean and Jonathan has not only been spending his time working on new acting projects, he's also been pursuing his music career. He first showed his strong musical talent as Lucky Spencer, and he's now recorded the album God Candy with his family band, Scarlet Road.
With Jonathan's hectic schedule, it's hard to track him down, but Popstar did. And he had plenty to say about music, acting and the possibility of returning to GH one day in the future.
Popstar: You're in the band Scarlet Road with your uncle, your dad and your brother Richard Lee - so how did that all come about? Jonathan: Richard and I had been playing together for a year or so, and my dad plays bass guitar, so he just started jamming with us. My uncle moved down to L.A., and he's been staying for us awhile. It all just kind of happened naturally - we started playing together. It seemed to work really well.
How did you come up with the name? The name is actually the name of my dad and uncle's garage band in the '60's.
What is your favorite song on God Candy? Well, we try to do a lot of different styles, so it's kind of depends on what mood I'm in. If I'm in the mood for a slow song, I kind of like something like "God Candy." If I'm in the mood for a heavy rock song, there is a song called "Show and Tell" that's pretty heavy.
Do you do all of the singing? Most of it. Richard does the lead vocals on two of the songs. I wrote all the music and lyrics to all of them, except for the two that Richard did.
Have you done live performances? Here and there. I do some around L.A. and we did the Super Soap Weekend event in Disney World. It's kind of hard with the acting schedules.
The song "Elizabeth" that you sang on General Hospital - did you write that? I wrote that one. It was my idea and I pitched it to them. I put it down on the four-track and then took it in to them and played it for them.
So how does it feel to be gone from General Hospital? Do you miss it? I miss some of the people a little bit. I have been visiting there quite a bit, just too keep up with everybody, but I miss acting with Tony Geary, Genie Francis and some of the people there. I would still love to do it, but it just feels like the right thing to do, to get out and have time to do other stuff.
How would you feel if they recast the role of Lucky? I don't know if they will or not. I know a lot of actors on the show don't want that to happen. I don't know if that would be the smartest thing for them to do. I don't know. If they did, I would hope they'd get a good actor who did the character the right way. I probably wouldn't let it get to me too bad. I'd hopefully be off focusing on other stuff.
Do you think you'll ever go back? I don't know. It's not something in my plans right now. But...you never know.
You did a TV movie called Purple Haze, right? Yeah, it's a movie for ABC - they're probably going to retitle it, but I am pretty sure it will be airing in March. It's about a young guy who falls in love with a girl who is kind of in the drug scene and he becomes a heroin addict.
What was "that" role like?! It was a pretty intense project, but it was a good experience and I think it's going to turn out to be a really cool project.
Do you plan on sharing the screen with your brother? Yeah, we have an independent movie that we did together. It's called True Rights. We don't really know where it's going. We don't have really a lot of scenes together. But we also cut three songs that we wrote for the movie.
Which do you prefer - singing or acting? I'd love to do both. I want to incorporate and blend them if I could. Maybe do as much soundtrack stuff as I can.
How do you like to spend Valentine's Day? I guess it depends on if I'm single or not. [Laughs] If I'm with somebody, then I guess I'll spend it with them. Other than that, I am trying to remember what I did last Valentine's Day. Last Valentine's Day, I remember having some really cool scenes on General Hospital. [Laughs]
This young and rising star has been off of the hit soap opera General Hospital for less than a year, and he is already on his way to the big time. 