Joshua Jackson

Joshua Jackson, Toronto, Sept. 14, 2006

THE FILM THAT BROUGHT JOSHUA JACKSON TO THE FILM FESTIVAL is only twelve years old, but it's already a snapshot of another time. Bobby was a star-studded ensemble picture about the day that Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, directed by Emilio Estevez (more of him tomorrow) and starring Demi Moore, Ashton Kutcher, Helen Hunt, Laurence Fishburne, Lindsay Lohan, Elijah Wood, Shia LaBoeuf, William H. Macy (another future post), Anthony Hopkins, Sharon Stone, Harry Belafonte, Heather Graham, Christian Slater, Estevez' father, Martin Sheen - and Joshua Jackson, Canadian-born and exactly the sort of local-boy-made-good that the film festival loves to host.

The film was produced by Harvey Weinstein, and was only the latest in a long line of Kennedy hagiographies that Hollywood seemed contractually obliged to produce - at least until Chappaquiddick came out this year. Of all the Kennedys, RFK's reputation is the least tarnished by time, but the film wasn't a success, either critically or at the box office. Kennedy fatigue is palpable now, but it seems like it might have been building for at least a decade.

Joshua Jackson, Toronto, Sept. 14, 2006

Jackson was a celebrity, but I knew almost nothing about him - five years on a hit TV show will make your reputation, but it was still possible in 2006 for a pop culture refusenik like myself to live in passive indifference, even to a multiple nominee of the Teen Choice Awards.

Yes, I'm being irreverent, mostly to avoid saying that I don't remember much about this shoot - not even where it was shot (though I suspect it was the Intercontinental on Bloor.) The metadata on the jpegs I shot that morning tell me this was done bright and early, so Jackson might have been fresh, at the start of a press day. I did what I knew worked and got in tight with my 35mm lens; it delivered one good head shot and another decent candid frame of Jackson, likely talking to a publicist or Chris, the writer. That sort of thing usually doesn't work, but there's enough intensity in his expression here to make it worthwhile.