Joshua Jackson

Joshua Carter Jackson born June 11, 1978 is a Canadian–American actor. He is known for his starring role as Charlie Conway in Mighty Ducks and as Pacey Witter in the teen drama series Dawson’s Creek (1998–2003), Peter Bishop in the science fiction series Fringe (2008–2013), Cole Lockhart in the drama series The Affair (2014–18), Mickey Joseph in the drama miniseries When They See Us (2019), and Bill Richardson in the drama miniseries Little Fires Everywhere (2020).

Jackson’s best known films include The Mighty Ducks film series (1992–96), Cruel Intentions (1999), The Skulls (2000), and Shutter (2008). For his performance in the Canadian independent film One Week (2008), Jackson won the Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role.

Early life

Jackson was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, to parents John and Fiona. His mother is a casting director. Jackson’s father is from Texas, and his mother is a native of Ballyfermot, Dublin, Ireland having immigrated to North America in the late 1960s. He has a younger sister, Aisleagh, and two older half brothers, Jonathan and Lyman. He was raised Catholic.

Jackson lived in California until the age of 8. He moved to Vancouver with his mother and younger sister. He attended Ideal Mini School and later switched to Kitsilano Secondary School. In an interview with The New York Times, Jackson said he was kicked out of high school once because of The Jon Stewart Show: ” played, at least where I grew up, at 1:30 in the morning, so I would stay up at night to watch Jon Stewart, but then I’d be too tired—or too lazy—to go to school in the morning. So I’d just take the first couple of classes off, ’cause I wanted to be fresh when I got there.”

Career

Jackson started acting in a small role in the film Crooked Hearts in 1991. The next year, he played the role of Charlie in a musical version of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. At this point, with the help of the play’s casting director Laura Kennedy, he joined the William Morris Agency. Soon after, he landed the role of Charlie (#96) in The Mighty Ducks series, playing a young and aspiring hockey player.

Joshua Jackson went on to appear as Pacey Witter on Dawson’s Creek, which was created by Kevin Williamson and ran on the WB network from 1998–2003, and also starred James Van Der Beek, Michelle Williams and Katie Holmes. While the show was on hiatus, he appeared in several movies including Cruel Intentions (a New York yuppie adaptation of Les Liaisons dangereuses that also starred Sarah Michelle Gellar and Ryan Phillippe), The Skulls, The Safety of Objects, The Laramie Project and a short cameo in the remake of Ocean’s Eleven in which he appears as himself in a poker scene with Brad Pitt, George Clooney and Holly Marie Combs, among others. In 2000, he also guest-starred in Season 12 of The Simpsons, voicing the character of Jesse Grass, a “hunky environmentalist” and love interest for Lisa Simpson in the episode “Lisa the Tree Hugger”. He also was cast as ” Beau” in the movie “Gossip” in 2000 with actors James Marsden, Kate Hudson and Norman Reedus.

Shortly after Dawson’s Creek ended in 2003, Jackson played the lead role in films alongside Dennis Hopper (Americano), Harvey Keitel (Shadows in the Sun), and Donald Sutherland (Aurora Borealis). In 2005, Jackson moved to the UK and made his stage debut on the London West End with Patrick Stewart in David Mamet’s two-man play, A Life in the Theatre. The play was a critical and popular success, and ran from February to April of that year. Jackson said that he would consider returning to the stage, to try his hand on Broadway. His next film role was in Bobby, directed by Emilio Estevez, Jackson’s co-star from The Mighty Ducks. He played a lead role in Shutter, a US remake of a Thai horror film of the same name. He starred and acted as executive producer in the Canadian independent film One Week, which opened on March 6, 2009.

From 2008 to 2013, Jackson played the lead role of Peter Bishop in the science-fiction series Fringe, created by JJ Abrams, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman. The series appeared on the Fox TV network and was the second-highest rated new show of the 2008–2009 season after CBS’s The Mentalist. BuddyTV ranked him #9 on its “TV’s 100 Sexiest Men of 2010” list, #19 in 2011 and #14 in 2012.

Jackson was nominated for Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role for the film One Week. He won the award on April 12, 2010. He held and hosted the satirical Pacey-Con in 2010, directly across the street from the San Diego Comic-Con, sporting a bowling shirt and giving out fan fiction, written by Dawson’s Creek fans, to those waiting in the Comic-Con entrance line. Footage of the event was recorded for a video, entitled ‘Pacey-Con’, which he was filming for Will Ferrell’s Funny or Die celebrity humor website. In 2013 Jackson appeared in the IFC film Inescapable with Marisa Tomei and Alexander Siddig. Jackson wrote the first story from the comic book trilogy Beyond the Fringe, titled “Peter and the Machine”. Jackson starred in the successful Showtime television show, The Affair, where he played Cole Lockhart, the protagonist husband of the unfaithful Alison Lockhart.

In March 2018, Jackson made his theatrical debut on Broadway, Children of a Lesser God, where he played James Leeds, an unconventional teacher at school for the deaf who gets in a conflicted professional and romantic relationship with a former deaf student, Sarah Norman (Lauren Ridloff). The play ran through May 2018.

In 2019, Jackson starred as defense attorney Mickey Joseph in the Netflix drama miniseries When They See Us.

In 2020, Jackson co-starred with Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington in Hulu’s miniseries Little Fires Everywhere based on the novel by Celeste Ng.

Jackson has been cast in the title role in Dr. Death, based on the podcast of the same name.

Personal life

Jackson was in a relationship with Dawson’s Creek co-star Katie Holmes during the first two seasons of the show’s run. Holmes claims Jackson was her first love.

Jackson began dating German actress Diane Kruger in 2006. Jackson and Kruger ended their relationship in 2016 after 10 years together. He owns his childhood home in Topanga, California. He previously lived in Wilmington, North Carolina, where Dawson’s Creek was filmed; and in New York, where Fringe filmed its first season. In 2009, he moved back to Vancouver to shoot four seasons of the show before the last episode was aired on January 18, 2013.

Jackson has been in a relationship with British model and actress Jodie Turner-Smith since 2018. They married in December 2019 and welcomed their first child in April 2020.

Jackson is a fan of the Vancouver Canucks hockey team. He was arrested on November 9, 2002, at a Carolina Hurricanes hockey game in Raleigh, North Carolina, after a quarrel with a security guard. He was charged with assault, affray, and public intoxication and disruption, having a 0.14 blood alcohol content. Prosecutors agreed to dismiss the assault charge, and Jackson agreed to attend an alcohol education program and perform 24 hours of community service in order to have the remaining charge dropped.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1991	Crooked Hearts	Tom (11 years)
1992	The Mighty Ducks	Charlie Conway
1993	Digger	Billy
1994	D2: The Mighty Ducks	Charlie Conway
1994	Andre	Mark Baker
1995	Magic in the Water	Joshua Black
1996	D3: The Mighty Ducks	Charlie Conway
1996	Robin of Locksley	John Prince, Jr.
1997	Ronnie and Julie	Ronnie
1997	Scream 2	Film Class Guy #1
1998	The Battery	Michael Papperman	Short film
1998	Apt Pupil	Joey
1998	Urban Legend	Damon Brooks
1999	Cruel Intentions	Blaine Tuttle
1999	Muppets from Space	Pacey Witter	Uncredited cameo
2000	The Skulls	Lucas ‘Luke’ McNamara
2000	Gossip	Beau Edson
2001	The Safety of Objects	Paul Gold
2001	Ocean’s Eleven	Himself	Cameo
2002	The Laramie Project	Matt Galloway
2002	Lone Star State of Mind	Earl Crest	Alternative title: Cowboys and Idiots
2003	I Love Your Work	John Everhart
2005	Cursed	Jake Taylor
2005	Racing Stripes	Trenton’s Pride	Voice role
2005	Americano	Chris McKinley
2005	Aurora Borealis	Duncan Shorter
2005	The Shadow Dancer	Jeremy Taylor	Alternative title: Shadows in the Sun
2006	Bobby	Wade Buckley
2007	Battle in Seattle	Randall
2008	Shutter	Benjamin Shaw
2008	Gashole	Himself	Documentary
2008	One Week	Ben Tyler
2012	Lay the Favorite	Jeremy
2012	Inescapable	Paul
2015	Sky	Detective Ruther

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1991	Payoff	Young Mac	TV movie
1996	Champs	Matt Mazzilli	Episodes: “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do” and “For Art’s Sake”
1996	Robin of Locksley	Prince John, Jr.	TV movie
1997	Ronnie & Julie	Ronnie Monroe	TV movie
1997	On the Edge of Innocence	Sammy	TV movie
1997	The Outer Limits	Devon Taylor	Episode: “Music of the Spheres”
1998–2003	Dawson’s Creek	Pacey Witter	124 episodes
2000	The Simpsons	Jesse Grass	Voice; Episode: “Lisa the Tree Hugger”
2001	Cubix	Brian	Voice
2006	Capitol Law	Mark Clayton	Unsold CBS TV pilot
2008–2013	Fringe	Peter Bishop	96 episodes
2014–2018	The Affair	Cole Lockhart	29 episodes
2016	Gravity Falls	Additional Voices	Episode: “Weirdmageddon 3: Take Back the Falls”
2016	Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt	Purvis	Episode: “Kimmy Goes to a Hotel!”
2016	Years of Living Dangerously	Himself	Episode: “Collapse of the Oceans”
2019	When They See Us	Mickey Joseph	Episode: “Part Two”
2020	Little Fires Everywhere	Bill Richardson	Miniseries; 7 episodes
TBA	Dr. Death	Dr. Christopher Duntsch	Upcoming limited series

Stage

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2005	A Life in The Theatre	John	David Mamet play with Patrick Stewart
2016	Smart People	Brian	New play by Lydia R. Diamond at Second Stage Theater
2017, 2018	Children of a Lesser God	James Leeds	Berkshire Theatre Festival with Kenny Leon Studio 54