Vancouver-born Joshua Jackson could be forgiven for thinking he had transported himself back to his days filming Dawson's Creek in Wilmington, N.C., when he arrived back home in Vancouver this past summer to begin work on the second season of Fringe.
Wilmington is in the American South, in the path of the numerous hurricanes that sweep in from the Atlantic in late summer and early fall. Heat and humidity come with the territory.
But Vancouver?
"It's true - only, without the Spanish moss,'' Jackson said with a rueful laugh, comparing the two climates. "I certainly didn't imagine that Vancouver would become Acapulco in the 10 years that I was away.''
With the long-range forecast predicting another El Nino winter-- think above- freezing temperatures and plenty of rain and drizzle -- it won't be long before Vancouver is back to the place Jackson remembered when he was going to Kitsilano Secondary School and getting into trouble for cutting class so he could watch The Jon Stewart Show in the early hours the previous morning.
"I never expected to get the gift of going back home with work,'' Jackson said. "It's been a long time. I think 1997 was the last time I was able to work in Vancouver, which is odd, given the fact that I've been kicking around for so long. To be able to take a show back home is pretty fantastic.''
"Pretty fantastic'' sums up Jackson's early acting career, when he landed a key role in Stephen Herek's 1992 feel-good hockey movie The Mighty Ducks - reportedly beating out a young Jake Gyllenhaal for the role, according to People.
Jackson graduated from The Mighty Ducks to Dawson's Creek, Kevin Williamson's generation-defining, coming-of-age drama that aired on The WB network for six seasons between 1998 and 2003. Jackson played Pacey Witter, the troublemaking teen who entertains an on-again/off-again relationship with proverbial girl-next-door Joey Potter, played by a then-unknown Katie Holmes.
In Fringe, Jackson plays Peter Bishop, sarcastic, wise-cracking partner in crime-solving to earnest FBI agent Olivia Dunham, played by Australian actress Anna Torv.
Jackson insists his character's gift for wisecracking and sarcasm has not rubbed off on him in any way.
"That's the part that comes hardest for me,'' he said facetiously. "I'll be honest. I struggle with that every day.''
Fringe's pilot episode was filmed late last year, in the middle of an uncharacteristically snowy Toronto winter, when towering snow banks gave the set-in-Boston series an eerie, distinctly chilly tone and feel.
Production pulled up stakes to New York City for Fringe's first season. In May, the decision was made to move once again, this time to Vancouver.
Jackson and his castmates Torv and John Noble, who, like Torv, is from Australia, moved to Vancouver earlier this summer.
Jackson insists that, while Fringe may seem hard to follow for the casual viewer, it will all come together in the end.
"If you caught us lying, if it looked as if we didn't believe what we were saying, no one would follow us to the end of the stage. If we believe what we're saying wholeheartedly, and believe it passionately, then, as an audience member, I would watch the show.
"I loved The X-Files, when I was younger. I would watch that show six feet under water with my dying breath expiring in my lungs. I would do anything to watch that show, because they believed. And I wanted to believe with them.''
That said, Jackson wants to make it look as though his character knows his scientific theory.
"I'm finishing off my advanced chemistry degree from DeVry right now,'' he quipped.
Jackson acknowledges there was bound to be controversy over last May's season-ending shot of the World Trade Center - some U.S. viewers complained that it was exploitative and disrespectful - but, he says, in hindsight, it was the right call for the show to make.
"It should break your heart,'' he said. "That's the point. It's supposed to be as shocking and poignant as it can possibly be. On the one hand, it pulls your heartstrings to the point where you go, 'God, what a much better world that would be.' And on the other hand, it makes you a little uncomfortable with the world that we are living in. I think it's good to be shocked into paying attention.''
Jackson says he gets along with Noble, even though the two have an adversarial father-son relationship in the show. Jackson plays Peter Bishop; Noble plays his mad-scientist father, Dr. Walter Bishop.
"Daddy,'' Jackson said, with a straight face. "Push and pull. We discussed this last year: We want (the relationship) to get to the point where, if you take the Bishops out of Fringe, we want the relationship to still make sense. If you strip away everything else in the show, that father-and-son dynamic - which is true for any parent and child - must seem every bit as honest and real.
"Right now, it's the source of some of the greatest joys for me working on set, dialing that stuff in and just playing it. John is an endlessly inventive actor, and it makes my life so much more enjoyable and easier to work with somebody who's always challenging himself and won't ever settle for second best, and who brings such joy to everything he does. I think sometimes I'm guilty of just watching.''
Fringe returns Thursday, Sept. 17 on A channel and Fox at 9 ET/PT.
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