Joshua Jackson

Joshua Jackson is a Canadian-American actor born on June 11, 1978, in Vancouver, British Columbia, to John and Fiona Jackson. His mother, a native of Ballyfermot, a suburb of Dublin, Ireland, immigrated to North America in the late 1960s and works as a casting director. His father is from Texas. Jackson has a younger sister, Aisleagh, and two older half brothers, Jonathan and Lyman. He was raised Roman Catholic. After living in California until the age of eight, he relocated to Vancouver with his mother and sister. He attended Ideal Mini School and later Kitsilano Secondary School, where his classmates included actor Ryan Reynolds.

Jackson began his acting career with a small part in the 1991 film Crooked Hearts. The following year he played Charlie in a stage production of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, an experience that connected him with casting director Laura Kennedy and led to his signing with the William Morris Agency. He soon landed the role of Charlie Conway in The Mighty Ducks film series, which ran from 1992 to 1996 and was directed by Emilio Estevez. His film work during the late 1990s and early 2000s included Apt Pupil (1998), Urban Legend (1998), Cruel Intentions (1999), The Skulls (2000), Gossip (2000), The Safety of Objects (2001), The Laramie Project (2002), Cursed (2005), Bobby (2006), and Shutter (2008). In 2000, he guest-starred in Season 12 of The Simpsons, voicing Jesse Grass, a love interest for Lisa Simpson in the episode "Lisa the Tree Hugger." He also appeared as himself in a cameo in the remake of Ocean's Eleven, in a poker scene alongside Brad Pitt and George Clooney.

On television, Jackson became widely recognized for playing Pacey Witter on the WB teen drama Dawson's Creek, created by Kevin Williamson, which ran from 1998 to 2003 and also starred James Van Der Beek, Michelle Williams, and Katie Holmes. He subsequently starred as Peter Bishop in the Fox science fiction series Fringe, created by J. J. Abrams, Roberto Orci, and Alex Kurtzman, from 2008 to 2013. The series ranked as the second-highest rated new show of the 2008–2009 season after The Mentalist. Jackson then portrayed Cole Lockhart in Showtime's The Affair from 2014 to 2018. Later television credits include the role of defense attorney Mickey Joseph in the 2019 Netflix miniseries When They See Us, and a supporting role alongside Reese Witherspoon and Kerry Washington in the 2020 Hulu miniseries Little Fires Everywhere, based on the novel by Celeste Ng. From 2021 to 2023, he starred as neurosurgeon Christopher Duntsch in the Peacock crime drama Dr. Death, based on the podcast of the same name, earning a Critics' Choice Television Award nomination for Best Actor. In 2023, he led the series Fatal Attraction opposite Lizzy Caplan. He joined the cast of Doctor Odyssey in 2024.

In the Canadian independent drama One Week (2008), in which he also served as executive producer, Jackson played the lead role. The film opened on March 6, 2009, and his performance earned him the Genie Award for Best Actor, which he received on April 12, 2010. He also wrote the first story in the comic book trilogy Beyond the Fringe, titled "Peter and the Machine."

Jackson made his stage debut in 2005 on the London West End, appearing opposite Patrick Stewart in David Mamet's two-man play A Life in the Theatre, which ran from February to April of that year. He made his Broadway debut in March 2018 in a revival of Children of a Lesser God, playing James Leeds, a teacher at a school for the deaf who enters a conflicted professional and romantic relationship with a deaf former student, Sarah Norman, portrayed by Lauren Ridloff. The production ran through May 2018.

In his personal life, Jackson was in a relationship with Diane Kruger from 2006 to 2016. He began a relationship with actress Jodie Turner-Smith in 2018, and the two married on August 18, 2019. Their daughter was born on April 13, 2020. Turner-Smith filed for divorce in October 2023, and the couple reached a settlement in May 2025. Jackson and actress Lupita Nyong'o confirmed a relationship in December 2023; Nyong'o announced in October 2024 that they were no longer together. Jackson owned his childhood home in Topanga, California, which burned down during the Palisades Fire in 2025. He is a supporter of the Vancouver Canucks ice hockey team and the San Francisco 49ers football team.