Joshua Jackson has been pretty tired lately — but that’s what you get for having a somewhat manic job.
“I was on my knees Hoovering brains off a carpet two days ago,” the Canadian-bred actor shockingly admitted during a recent stop in Toronto.
While that revelation might sound disturbingly morbid at first, consider the context. After all, Jackson’s clean-up was taking place on the set of his new hit sci-fi TV show Fringe — one of the main reasons for his hectic schedule.
The other? Returning from Hollywood to his homeland to promote his latest movie, One Week — opening Friday — in which Jackson plays a young man who copes with a terminal disease by traversing the Great White North on a motorcycle.
“It’s a celebration of the many Canadas,” said Jackson, admitting the film’s patriotic affection was part of the draw. “There’s so much to do between here and Tofino and because it’s a road movie, which is unusual, you actually get to see and experience much of the country instead of one specific region.”
And that is just what Jackson and director Mike McGowan did — travel across Canada with just a tiny film crew. Although he is no stranger to the road, Jackson admits it was a grueling challenge.
“I used to do the road trip between Vancouver and Wilmington, N.C., where I used to (shoot Dawson’s Creek) every year, so I’ve done that a ton but I never went Vancouver to Toronto and south. To be honest, I always thought the prairies would be kind of boring.”
Instead, Jackson’s “big revelation” was discovering the beauty of the flat, humbling expanse of land and the hidden treasures along its stretch of highways. One of the pure joys of watching One Week is encountering such bizarre Canadian roadside attractions as the Wawa Goose and the giant nickel in Sudbury. “The dinosaur (in Drumheller) was just so fabulously ridiculous,” Jackson said of his favourite stop. “That you can pay five bucks to walk a staircase to get into the mouth of a giant Tyrannosaurus Rex in the middle of the prairies is fantastic.”
