Joshua Jackson on His Little Fires Everywhere Underwear Scene: 'I Enjoy Getting Objectified'
Joshua Jackson has still got it!
The 41-year-old actor received an outpouring of fan attention online after he appeared in the premiere episode of the Hulu series Little Fires Everywhere wearing a tight-fitting pair of white briefs. And while he certainly expected to getting that sort of attention back in the Dawson’s Creek days, the frenzy caught Jackson a little off guard this time.
“I didn’t realize quite what a hit that would be,” Jackson said via video chat on Wednesday’s episode of Live with Kelly and Ryan. “Who knew that all these years what was missing from my career was parading around in my tighty-whities!”
He went on to stress that he doesn’t mind the attention, telling Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest with a laugh, “I’m in my 40s now. I enjoy getting objectified!”
As for the drawers in question, Jackson said that he nearly donned those underpants in another scene but that producers thought it might be a little bit gratuitous.
“I had forgotten this until last week until the show aired and the tighty-whities became quite a thing, they actually made me change,” Jackson recalled. “There’s two scenes in the bedroom in that first episode, and they actually made me change out of the tighty-whities for the second one.”
“I remember them sort of like nebulously being like, ‘Well, it’s just probably a little much,’ and I didn’t realize what they were saying until I watched it. I was like, ‘Oh… oh yeah, that’s a lot. That’s a lot,” he joked. “There’s not a lot left to the imagination there.”
Hulu Joshua Jackson
Jackson is acting in Little Fires Everywhere alongside his former Cruel Intentions costar Reese Witherspoon, playing her character’s husband.
The limited series, which drops new episodes Wednesdays on Hulu, is based on Celeste Ng’s 2017 bestselling novel.
It follows “the intertwined fates of the picture-perfect Richardson family and an enigmatic mother and daughter who upend their lives,” according to the logline. “The story explores the weight of secrets, the nature of art and identity, the ferocious pull of motherhood — and the danger in believing that following the rules can avert disaster.”
The show also stars Kerry Washington, Rosemarie DeWitt, Jade Pettyjohn, Jordan Elsass, Gavin Lewis, Megan Stott and Lexi Underwood.
Washington, 43, and Witherspoon, 44, are also executive producing the series.
Tommaso Boddi/WireImage Joshua Jackson and Jodie Turner-Smith
Off screen, the actor is days away from becoming a first-time father, with his wife Jodie Turner-Smith pregnant with their first child — a girl.
The two are hunkered down in their California home during the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak and “managing the stress just like everybody else,” Jackson said on Live with Kelly and Ryan.
“We’re just trying to figure out on a moment to moment basis how to get through this with our sanity,” Jackson said, adding that they had taken to playing board games to pass the time. “We’re in the board game stage now. We did a lot, a lot, a lot of binge watching last week, so now … we’ve moved our way through Monopoly. Now it’s actually Jenga. Jenga’s the thing!”
Jackson had previously hinted that the Queen & Slim actress was due at the end of the month, but hesaid on Live with Kelly and Ryan that the baby will likely come in early April.
“We are in the very, very home stretch,” Jackson said. “Everybody tells us that the first baby’s late, so we’re probably 10ish days away.”
“She’s physically fine and the baby is physically fine, so the important things are all good,” he underlined. “We’re just figuring out how to deal with interacting with doctors and hospitals right now.”
Little Fires Everywhere is on Hulu now.
