Interview: Oliver Jackson-Cohen on ‘Jackdaw’
Oliver Jackson-Cohen is ready to step out of his comfort zone. The actor, known for his performances in The Invisible Man, Apple TV+ series Surface and Prime Video series Wilderness, has mostly been typecast as intense, overly-confident men who may seem like the poster boys of toxic masculinity. (A GQ article from 2022 is titled “Oliver Jackson-Cohen Is Worried He’s a Little Too Good at Playing Creepy Husbands”) His latest film, the action thriller Jackdaw from director Jamie Childs, is a change of pace for the actor; his character Jack Dawson is more reserved and grounded compared to the roles Jackson-Cohen is known for. And despite his phenomenal turn in the film (the actor delivers a haunting, searing performance that elevates the film from standard action thriller to fascinating character study of man forced into a tragic situation), Jackson-Cohen was initially not convinced he was the right man for the job.
Jackson-Cohen was filming Wilderness in the US when he first crossed paths with Childs, an up-and-coming director who has helmed episodes of shows such as The Sandman and His Dark Materials. Childs knew someone who worked on Wilderness and decided to visit the set for a few days. “We were traveling around America and Jamie sort of came along for the ride,” says Jackson-Cohen. “He started talking to me about Jackdaw. He was like, ‘Yeah. I’m thinking about writing this thing,’ or I think he already had written a first draft of it. We were sort of just talking [about the film] as mates, and then we got back after we had wrapped Wilderness, and he called me and said, ‘It’s done. Can you have a read of it?’ And so I did.”
Clocking in at just north of 90 minutes, Jackdaw is the type of lean, mean action thriller they don’t make much of these days, with a simple premise and a hook that may initially seem familiar and old-fashioned to genre veterans but slowly grows into something more as the film progresses. It follows Jack Dawson, a former motocross champion and army veteran who is now caring for his younger brother. Broke, he agrees to do an open water pick up of a mysterious illegal package in the North Sea. A resulting double cross and his brother’s disappearance set him and his old bike on a violent nocturnal odyssey through England’s northern rust belt.
More John Wick than James Bond, Jack is a haunted man mourning the loss of his career as a motocross champion and struggling to look after his younger brother. With a taciturn, stoic demeanor that rarely betrays his thoughts or feelings, Jack mostly conveys intent and emotions through actions and his physicality rather than his words. Jackson-Cohen was surprised when Childs initially offered him the role of Jack on the spot. “I was like, ‘I really don’t think I’m the right person for you,'” he says. “So I started throwing these ideas out, like, ‘You should get this actor, you should get that actor.’ But Jamie was like, ‘No, it has to be you.’ And because I feel like I’ve never really done something like this, I think I was quite skeptical. But Jamie is such an exciting director and such an exciting new talent; his vision and his references were so bonkers, that I just thought he was going to make something special. The story is a familiar story. It’s not reinventing the wheel in that way, but the way he executes it just felt so incredibly original. I just really think all of us jumped on board because of our belief in Jamie.”
As Jack is a man of a few words, it could have been very easy for audiences to feel apathetic and disconnected from him and the film as a result. However, in Jackson-Cohen’s hands, he comes across as a troubled and tormented man with a tragic past. From the moment he appears on screen, the actor manages to captivate audiences with his raw and emotionally charged portrayal of a man grappling with his inner demons. The actor worked closely with Childs to capture the vulnerability that lies way beneath the surface of Jack’s tough exterior. “The movie was fast-tracked so Jamie wrote the script in the summer and then we were shooting by November,” he explains. “The script that he had sent me was a finished script, but it was an early draft so we sat down and hashed it out over two nights. I was like, ‘We need to bring the aspect of the mother back in,’ and so it was a bit of a scramble to get the character together and ready in time. But Jamie is incredibly collaborative and so we just sort of made some quite quick changes. It did feel important because you’re following this guy that’s mainly in a motorcycle helmet for the bulk of the movie. So we knew we needed to pepper in character. It can’t just be this sort of robotic person, and I don’t think that’s what Jamie wanted either.”
Jackson-Cohen also worked closely with Jenna Coleman, who he also co-starred in Wilderness with, to develop the history of the relationship between their characters before starting production. “We had a day where we sat down with Jenna and went through all the history there of what their relationship was,” he reveals. “And then we just sort of peppered those things in throughout the movie.” While the two play lovers in both projects, their dynamic couldn’t have been more different. “It was amazing,” says Jackson-Cohen of getting to work with Coleman again. “We wrapped Wilderness like four weeks prior and then we were already on set to do Jackdaw. We basically spent 7 months of the last year working together. When you have a sort of shorthand with an actor that you’ve worked with before, or you’re friends with an actor, there’s already a sort of trust there. So I felt really lucky to be able to work with her again.”
While Jackson-Cohen has a vast and incredibly diverse filmography, ranging from the heartbreaking mini-series Man in an Orange Shirt to the 2020 hit The Invisible Man to aforementioned Apple TV+ series Surface, some of his best work is in Mike Flanagan‘s Haunting anthology series. The actor appeared in both seasons of the show, Hill House and Bly Manor respectively, playing two wildly different characters, showcasing his versatility as an actor. In Hill House, he took on the role of Luke Crain, a recovering addict haunted by the traumas of his childhood. He manages to bring a poignant vulnerability to the character, capturing the emotional depth and the complexity of Luke’s journey. In contrast, his role in Bly Manor as Peter Quint is markedly different, showcasing his range as an actor. As the charming but sinister Quint, Jackson-Cohen brings a chilling charisma to the screen, infusing the character with a sense of menace and unpredictability that slowly unravels as his backstory is revealed.
“The great thing was that Hill House came along and Netflix sort of left us to it,” recalls the actor. “We were just like this experiment, it felt like. Netflix knew then that horror was their biggest thing that was being streamed and so they were like, ‘Oh, this could potentially work on our platform.’ And this has been something that Mike had been developing for 10 years. It was his baby so we went off and shot it, and I genuinely remember having a conversation and just saying like, ‘I don’t really know if people are gonna like this,’ because it’s basically us just talking about our childhood trauma and crying over our dead sister, but in a horror show. And I think [the success] took us all by surprise. All of us were so proud to be a part of it. What Mike did with Hill House was incredible.” And although Jackson-Cohen was in both seasons of the Haunting series, he has yet to reunite with Flanagan on any of his follow-up shows, including Midnight Mass and The Fall of the House of Usher. Asked if he’d like to work with Flanagan again in the future, he responds with the affirmative. “I’d love to,” he says. “I don’t know what Mike’s got planned next but we’ll see.”
As for what he has planned next, Jackson-Cohen says he’s still figuring out, taking it one step at a time. “I was doing an interview the other day and I was talking about how everyone gets put into a box,” he says. “People love to categorize you as this sort of thing or that sort of thing. The exciting challenge is to keep on pushing yourself in order to change what people think your parameters are, or even what you thought of yourself. It’s an interesting thing. With Jackdaw, when I got the script, I was like, ‘I’m not right for this, this is not in my wheelhouse,’ and Jamie had to really coax me into it, believing that I could do it. And so I think the exciting thing about this job is that you have to keep it as varied as possible for yourself. I’m finishing something at the moment in April and then I’m just going to take a minute and really think instead of just going from job to job to job. Just go, ‘What have I not done and what do I want to explore a bit more,’ you know? You can’t keep on doing the same thing over and over again.”
Jackdaw is now playing in theaters in the UK.