Joanna Johnson

In 1993, she took a stab at the music industry with the album Standing In My Rain (1993). The record was published by Finnish label Sony Music Entertainment (Finland) Oy. Johnson's primary focus is her career writing, producing and directing: She started as associate producer on the Peter Berg film, Very Bad Things (1998), starring Cameron Diaz and Jeremy Pive. She then wrote the independent film The Shrink Is In (2001) starring Courteney Cox and David Arquette, after she created the ABC sitcom comedy Hope & Faith (2003–2006) which ran for three seasons, starring Kelly Ripa and Faith Ford as sisters and also with Ted McGinley and Megan Fox. Following the cancellation of Hope and Faith Johnson revealed in an interview with Gabrielle Winkel that she was working on other projects such as writing several episodes of the ABC Family show Make It or Break It (2009 – 2012) for which she also worked as co-executive producer. In 2012 she worked too as executive producer and writer of Fairly Legal, for USA Cable, and the CW's series Emily Owens, M.D. (2012–2013) starred by Mamie Gummer (Meryl Streep's daughter) in one of her firsts leading roles and by Justin Hartley. In 2013, Johnson joined Peter Paige and Bradley Bredeweg as executive producer and showrunner on Freeform's drama series The Fosters (2013–2018), which ran for five seasons.The series stars Teri Polo and Sherri Saum as gay parents Stef and Lena who have a multiethnic family kids, one biological, the others from the foster-care system. Johnson also did her debut as director of several episodes. She is also the creator, executive producer and director of Freeform's limited series Love in the Time of Corona (2020). Since 2019 (just 7 months after The Fosters came to an end) Joanna Johnson started as executive producer and showrunner on Freeform's drama series Good Trouble (2019–2024), The Fosters spin-off, that was renewed for Season 5 at Freeform. Good Trouble is again created with Peter Paige and Bradley Bredeweg also. It starts by following The Fosters characters Callie (Maia Mitchell) and Mariana (Cierra Ramirez) that have grown and decided to move into a communal living space in Los Angeles. Both have a new job and intending to put careers above relationships. Johnson not only worked again as the director of some Good Trouble episodes but, in 2019, she also did a guest role in as Diana, the mother of Callie's colleague Rebecca (Molly McCook). Her character Diana is the daughter of a United States Senator. She comes from a wealthy and powerful conservative family and has always been careful not to do anything that could negatively affect her family name and expects the same from Rebecca. "We thought it would be fun if I played Rebecca's mother since I starred in the soap opera The Bold and the Beautiful with her [real] father [John McCook – Eric Forrester character]," Johnson said, adding "I think he convinced me I did the right path going behind the camera."