Joshua Jackson "Was Not Ready" for Marriage Before Meeting Jodie Turner-Smith

Meeting Jodie Turner-Smith marked a major turning point in Joshua Jackson's life.

The Little Fires Everywhere actor gave a rare glimpse into his relationship with his wife in a new interview with The Times. During the conversation, he opened up about how Turner-Smith reshaped his perspective when it came to marriage.

"Partially, it's age," Jackson said, referring to why he decided to change his mind about getting hitched. "I'm old enough to be able to do this. Partially it's about finding somebody in the right moment of life."

He admitted, "If we had met five years earlier we probably would have had a torrid affair, but all the rest of this stuff, I was just not ready. I didn't think I ever wanted to get married."

Jackson, who dated Diane Kruger for 10 years before splitting in 2016, and Turner-Smith first met through a mutual friend during a 2018 charity event. The two immediately became inseparable, he said, "spend[ing] every moment together and find[ing] reasons to be in other cities together at the same time."

Eventually, Turner-Smith proposed to him during a New Year's Eve vacation to Nicaragua. "I don't know if she planned it or if it was a spur-of-the-moment thing, but out popped a proposal I was not expecting and the organic and instinctive answer was yes," Jackson said.

The couple would ultimately secretly wed in 2019. The following year, they welcomed the arrival of their first child, a baby girl named Janie.

"Six months [after the proposal], she was pregnant and we were on our way. And now we have this beautiful baby who is literally the manifestation of that love," Jackson added. "It is impossible for me to look into the face of my child without feeling love for my wife."

On fatherhood, the actor reflected, "It has changed me in every single possible way."

Jackson previously opened up about parenthood during a 2021 guest appearance on SiriusXM's Jess Cagle.

"It's just this amazing thing where all the clichés are true. I mean, all of them, they're like, 'Oh, you'll never experience love like this.' That's true. And 'You think you're in love with them when they first arrive, but you have no idea how much deeper it gets all the time.' That's absolutely true," he said at the time. "As she starts to come alive and really experience the world and her natural curiosity, and she's so fearless, it's just the most incredible thing to watch."

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