The actor revealed that he changed his mind about wanting to get married and have kids after meeting the British actress.
Joshua Jackson is opening up about his marriage to his wife, Jodie Turner-Smith. In an interview with The Times, the Fatal Attraction star shared that it was meeting Turner-Smith that changed his mind about getting married and having children.
"Partially, it's age," Jackson tells the British publication. "I'm old enough to be able to do this. Partially it's about finding somebody in the right moment of life. 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, 44, recalled meeting 36-year-old Turner-Smith through a mutual friend at a 2018 charity event in Los Angeles. Jackson said he and Turner-Smith would "spend every moment together and find reasons to be in other cities together at the same time."
The Murder Mystery 2 actress previously revealed that neither party expected their relationship to last as long as it has, reflecting on their meeting during an appearance on Late Night With Seth Meyers in May 2021, where she joked that the pair had a one-night stand that's evolved into a "three-year one-night stand."
Turner-Smith explained that they met at a party where she played hard to get. "First of all, I saw him before he saw me and when I saw him, I was like, 'I want that,'" she said. "And then when he saw me, I just pretended like I didn't see him. He had to yell across the room to me, and I was wearing this T-shirt from a movie called Sorry to Bother You and [actress] Tessa Thompson plays a character called Detroit, and she has this T-shirt that says, 'The Future Is Female Ejaculation.'"
"And so, he shouts across the room, 'Detroit!' He comes over and… does this really cute, charming thing that he does and just all night -- he just basically followed me around the party," she added.
Jackson also opened up to The Times about Turner-Smith proposing to him during a New Year's Eve vacation to Nicaragua, explaining that although he didn't know if she had planned to ask beforehand, "the organic and instinctive answer was yes."
"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 continues of the pair's 3-year-old daughter. "It is impossible for me to look into the face of my child without feeling love for my wife."
He adds of becoming a father, "It has changed me in every single possible way."
Jackson had similar sentiments when ET spoke with him during a 2021 press junket for his show, Dr. Death. The actor opened up about how his life had changed since tying the knot and becoming a father.
"There is nothing that is not better off than being married to her and having that baby. It's everything," the actor told ET. "I wanted to say congratulations to her. [Jodie] is in Cannes right now for the first time with her movie... I wish I could be with you there, love."
Jackson told ET that to prepare for the role of Dr. Christopher Duntsch in the Peacock series, he first started listening to the Wondery podcast and "binged the whole thing in one sitting." He also relied on his family to help him step out of character after a long day on set.
"I think honestly, having my family there with me was fantastic, because to go home, kiss my wife, hold the baby and not be a truly, truly horrendous human being when I got home at night was a great tonic," he continued. "And then frankly, when we got to the end, I kind of just collapsed, I don't think I realized quite how heavy the thing was, that I was walking around with all of the time until it was done and I put it down and caught my breath."
Watch the video below for more on the happy family.
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