Joshua Jackson finally proves, once and for all that he's more than Charlie Conway. In the middle of the latest media blitz over "Dawson Creek" and Joshua's role as Pacey, the 15 year old who has an affair with his forty year old English teacher.It's hard to believe Joshua got discovered playing Charlie in "Charlie in the Chocolate Factory" in local music theater. Seattle Times Television critic, Kay McFadden talkes to Joshua about the latest milestone in his career...

A Long Way from Willy Wonka

interviewed by Kay McFadden

 

 


Kay McFadden: You were one of the more outspoken people at the press conference
when critics asked, "Could this really happen?" What about your character and
that situation?

Joshua Jackson: I don't want to draw a parallel between what happened in Seattle and
what happens on the show because that would be predatory. I saw the Seattle woman
interviewed on TV and she's got a couple screws loose and the kid didn't know what he
was doing. 

My character is a little bit older. Pacey is the pursuer and instead of the
teacher being all for, she's deadly against. She's having an obvious crisis of
conscience and is aware of doing something she thinks is wrong but is unable to
hold back. Inevitably, she is punished for it.

Pacey doesn't think he's gonna get her. She flirts with him and he thinks it's cool.
When it works out, he's not only trying to seduce her, he's in love. After that
first kiss, it's all over.

KM: Years ago, some might have said Pacey was precoscious.

JJ: Pacey is a 15-year-old who is possibly a little too self-aware for his own good,
but he has all the feelings you have when you're 15. It's even more volatile because
he's got the jargon down.

KM: Like that scene where he meets his teacher on the docks and delivers a
devastating speech about her reluctance to face turning 40?

JJ: That speech is meant to be a coup de grace. It's what disarms her.

KM: You exhibit a good deal of self-awareness as well. Where dors that come from
in your background?

JJ: I was born in Vancouver, moved to Los Angeles and when my parents split up,
gradually moved back up the west coast. I was able to pack a lot of experience into
my 19 years. 

My parents getting divorced was obviously a very traumatic experience. And then after,
it was just me, my sister and my mother, and we went at it alone. I went from being a
very well-off little kid to having a couple rough years, to re-building -- my mother 
did that. She and I are very close.

KM: What was your schooling like?

JJ: Abbreviated and herky-jerky. I went to Kitsilano High School in Vancouver.

KM: Was there sex education there?

JJ: Ha, there is something very different up there. That's why it was so suprising
when I came down here (for the press conference) and people were like, "Oh... sex! 
That's terrible!"

It's partially my mother being Irish. Europeans laugh at American attitudes towards
sex. And then Kitsilano, it's a ex-hippie place. It's very liberal.

And I believe open communication is th best way to deal with sex. If you've a problem
and believe your children to be too young to enter into the sexual ballgame, talk to
them. My 14 year old sister is getting into the dating game now and it's uncomfortable,
but I do it.

KM: Do you have frank speaks with her?

JJ: Oh yes, and sometimes it's uncomfortable as hell. I'm the one who went with her
when she went shopping for her first bra. She'll tell me about some boy she dated over
the weekend and kissed and I'm like, Aisleigh, jeez!

KM: So how did you get from Kitsalano to here?
 
JJ: My mom is a casting director and she brought me in for a very small part in a 
movie. Then that movie's producer did a play in Seattle the next year. It was a musical
version of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and I played Charlie... The play's 
casting director, Laura Kennedy, got me hooked up with William Morris as my agent and
"Mighty Ducks" followed six months later.

There was a snowball effect after that.

KM: Where do you live now?

JJ: Actually, nowhere at present. Vancouver's my home, but I'm going to spend more time
in Los Angeles for the next few months. Let's get optimistic and say the show gets picked
up. (Knocks wood.) Now is the time to parlay that.

KM: Any particular career desires?

JJ: Yes, I would love to do a guest appearance on "The X-Files". It's filmed right there
in Vancouver, I've wanted to be on it for five years, I've tried to get on it, I've asked
to get on it. But I think the effort is doomed.

(NOTE: Life imitating art or art, life: Seattle had it's own Pacey-and-the-English-teacher story hitting all the papers in 1997. A 13 year old boy and his teacher. A child was born.)

Copyright 1998 Seattle Times

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