Joshua Jackson (RIP) Belongs in the Keanu Reeves and Brendan Fraser Club

By Dustin Rowles | Celebrity | August 18, 2021 |

By Dustin Rowles | Celebrity | August 18, 2021 |

As our regular readers know, we always add a (RIP) in reference to Joshua Jackson (RIP) around here, although the running joke is so old that I don’t even know how many people remember its origins. The joke must be at least 12 or 13 years old, because it predates Fringe, although the original article is likely lost to the archives (RIP to the RIP post). We’re big fans of Joshua Jackson, and always have been (and why does no one else give proper due to The Skulls?), but there was about a five-year period between Dawson’s Creek and Fringe that, in retrospect seems brief, but at the time felt like eons where Jackson’s career took a nosedive (His most notable role in that five-year period was in the Christina Ricci werewolf film, Cursed, which is better than you might remember).

For giggles, we wrote an article eulogizing Jackson’s career, noting that it had died of neglect. Soon thereafter, however, his career bounced back, and we had ample opportunities to continue writing about Joshua Jackson (RIP), but the (RIP) had already become a permanent fixture so we kept it around.

I bring this up because 1) it’s been over a decade, and a refresher was necessary, and 2) because I think Joshua Jackson (RIP or no) belongs in that same rarified club to which Keanu and Brendan Fraser belong. Now, some might say, “Why does that club only have guys in it?” but what we are saying is that, “No no. You don’t understand. These are the only three men in Hollywood that are good.” When people say, #NotAllMen — and you should never say that, by the way — what they really mean is, #NotKeanuBrendanandJoshua(RIP)

To wit: Kathleen Newman-Bremang interviewed Jackson over on Refinery this week and, as she conceded herself, exhibited “zero chill.” Jackson, however, did not mind. I’m going to go ahead and encourage you to read the entire interview in support of his voice work on a new Audible audiobook, Oracle (downloaded!) because it is phenomenal. In it, he discusses his relationship with his wife, Jodie Turner-Smith, and her thirst tweets about him (“I am happy that my wife is thirsty for me”), and also the time that she proposed to him. I just assumed that her proposal was greeted with universal adoration, but then again, I do not read replies on Instagram. Jackson and Jodie Turner-Smith apparently do, and as Jackson notes in the interview, “holy Jesus, the internet is racist and misogynist.”

That I did know. In any respect, here’s Jackson on the two proposals that transpired:

So yes, we were in Nicaragua on a beautiful moonlit night, it could not possibly have been more romantic. And yes, my wife did propose to me and yes, I did say yes, but what I didn’t say in that interview was there was a caveat, which is that I’m still old school enough that I said, “This is a yes, but you have to give me the opportunity [to do it too].” She has a biological father and a stepdad, who’s the man who raised her. [I said], ‘You have to give me the opportunity to ask both of those men for your hand in marriage.’ And then, ‘I would like the opportunity to re-propose those to you and do it the old fashioned way down on bended knee.’ So, that’s actually how the story ended up.

So, there were two proposals. I do feel like that is important context.

JJ: Yes, two proposals. And also for anybody who is freaked out by a woman claiming her own space, shut the fuck up. Good God, you cannot believe the things people were leaving my wife on Instagram. She did it. I said ‘yes.’ We’re happy. That’s it. That’s all you need to know. That has been a real education for me as a white man, truly. The way people get in her comments and the ignorance and ugliness that comes her way is truly shocking. And it has been a necessary, but an unpleasant education in just the way people relate to Black bodies in general, but Black female bodies in specific. It is not okay. We have a long way to go.

Jackson also spoke about the potential for a Dawson’s Creek reboot, noting, too, that he would be very open to Pacey Witter being a Black man because it would “enrich the tapestry of that show.”

Go on over now and read Kathleen Newman-Bremang’s interview in full.