Cold Pursuit Tom Jackson Interview

Interview with Tom Jackson, "White Bull" in Cold Pursuit

February 19, 2019 at 3:32pm

Note: Interview was conducted over the phone, dialogue is largely accurate to discussion. You can read our review of the film at the bottom, the behind the scenes question answer may contain spoilers.

A staple I do in all interviews in order to start things off is to ask that you elaborate a bit about yourself and what projects you’ve been working on recently?

Tom: My name is Tom Jackson and I by and large, am in the entertainment business. Relative to what I hope we’ll be talking about, this year I have a bit of a frenzy going on in my life. I did a couple episodes of Outlander which was just telecast and a full season of Cardinal which we’re in the middle of. This last week the feature film called Cold Pursuit has just been released, I have a new album out and I’m planning a tour for this coming year, and I’m writing a screenplay.

Looking at Cold Pursuit, what drew your interest to this film and could you tell us a bit about the character you play in it?

Tom: I got interested in the film, when it was presented to my agent, it was passed to my wife. I have a process I go through; my agent likes it, my wife likes it, I’ll take a look at it. My wife was reading it in our large living room. She was laughing so much when she was reading the script, which really interested me. I didn’t expect the script to be that; due to how it was described to me, that it was going to be funny.

Turns out once I saw the film, why exactly it was so funny. When I read it, it didn’t seem funny. When it came to life; it’s a very funny movie, albeit somewhat dark. The character I play in the movie is White Bull, he loses his son to a crime lord. White Bull himself is the leader of a gang, sets out to avenge his son’s death and that’s basically what my character does throughout the movie. It was shot here in Alberta, Fortress Mountain for the outdoor scenes. Some stuff was shot in the Netherlands as well. Shot a lot in BC in Victoria, Fernie, Cranbrook and in Vancouver

Do you act mostly in films/series that are shot in Canada?

Tom: Most of the stuff I’ve done over the years, has in fact been here in Canada. There have been a few exceptions where I worked in the US. Generally speaking, most of the work that I do is here. I am currently also shooting a series “Red Earth Uncovered”, right in the middle of shooting season. We’ll complete it in July. I’m going down to California this coming month to go and meet with the producers of Cold Pursuit about another project which we don’t know at this point what it might look like. That’s pretty exciting.

In your opinion, what elements of Cold Pursuit do you believe help make the film stand out and are there any particular aspects of the movie that might entice someone that’s interested?

Tom: It catches you by surprise which is a great thing. The story line maybe sounds simple, but the film’s approach is interesting in that very little happens that you expect to have happen. There are basically three plot lines, but it’s all centralized around the fact that these two young men, one is my son and one is Nels (Liam Neeson) son both get killed by the same villain. They’re not in the same world, they’re both pursuing Viking which in turn is pursuing us.

It sets itself up to have three worlds operating at the same time. The characters and their relative community, that makes it really interesting. Another piece of the film that makes it interesting is the humour, it’s dark humour. But it’s funny, you find yourself at the end of the movie being able to say this. I haven’t talked to anyone that has seen this film, that did not have the same conclusion at the end. That was that they weren’t entertained, they find it very entertaining. I read a lot of reviews, I haven’t found one review that didn’t say exactly that.

For a more fun question, do you have any interesting or perhaps fun tales from behind the scenes of acting in Cold Pursuit?

Tom: I’m a pretty boring guy, I have to say that it was a real grand experience. I was anticipating so much getting to work with the other lead characters. But my character didn’t, and their characters didn’t either. You’ve seen the film, you’ll know that Viking doesn’t interact with Nels character except for pretty much the final scene and I don’t interact with the other characters until the final scene.

All my anticipating excitement around what would normally be great, working with Liam, that didn’t happen a lot. What did happen, my part of the film in a lot of ways was shot chronologically. So the last stuff we shot, was in fact with Liam. It was a lot of fun, we spent a lot of time in that vehicle you saw at the end. Sitting and talking about life while in-between shots. If there’s one thing to say, it’s what happened offset. Which was in-depth and great soulful conversations I had with Liam. We still interact to this day, I found a friendship with Liam I really enjoy, and with the producers that I really enjoy. It’ll be long lasting, I’ll tell you that. It’s wonderful.

Lastly I would like to leave a spot for you to say something or go over anything I might have missed during the interview?

Tom: One thing that I think is really important to acknowledge. Is that we as actors, we are literally art imitating life. What’s really important at this point in time in our history is that people that see our film, is that they realize that. That life should never be imitating art.

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