Nothing quite compares to the awkwardness of bumping into your neighbor while taking out the trash – only to remember you once performed a VERY intimate scene together on camera.
That’s exactly what happened to Joshua Jackson, years after filming Cruel Intentions.
In the now-classic 1999 teen drama (yes, the one with Ryan Phillippe’s infamous pool scene – you know the one), Jackson played Blaine Tuttle, a cunning gay student whose secret relationship with a closeted jock became major blackmail material for the film’s manipulative leads.
While Cruel Intentions made stars of Sarah Michelle Gellar, Phillippe, and Reese Witherspoon with its modern take on Les Liaisons Dangereuses, Jackson’s brief but boundary-pushing scene with actor Eric Mabius left quite an impression – not just on audiences, but apparently on the actor himself.
The Ultimate First Day Jitters
Look, we’ve all had tough first days at work, but Jackson’s experience takes the cake. In a deliciously candid new interview for Men’s Health’s “Stress Test” series, he revealed just how intense his introduction to the Cruel Intentions set really was.
In the film, Jackson’s character Blaine is caught in bed with Eric Mabius’s character Greg McConnell, a closeted football player, when Ryan Phillippe’s Sebastian bursts in with a camera.
The scene is pivotal as Sebastian uses the compromising photos to blackmail Greg, while McConnell desperately pleads “This is the first time I’ve done anything like this” – a line that becomes all the more ironic given Blaine’s earlier revelations about their ongoing affair.
“I wasn’t on Cruel Intentions very much”, Joshua now says, “But I do believe that my first day on this movie was giving a man oral attention.
“And that can be stressful for a 19-year-old heterosexual boy to sit in a room and perform that kind of intimate scene.”
Talk about diving into the deep end! While most of us were fumbling through awkward summer jobs at his age, Jackson was tackling one of cinema’s more intimate challenges.
“My stress test on this was to commit myself to this job that I had taken on and really make sure that I was all in, so to speak,” he explained with a hint of a smirk. The phrase “all in” takes on quite the double meaning here, doesn’t it?
When Past Roles Come Back to Haunt You
But the most cringe-worthy moment wasn’t actually on set – it came years later in the most mundane of settings.
“Years pass and I don’t see Eric Mabius for a long time after we’ve had this experience together,” Jackson shared. “And I am taking out my trash one day, and he and his wife walk by because they’ve just moved in down the street.”
Can you imagine? There you are, in sweatpants, hauling garbage to the curb, when suddenly you lock eyes with the guy you once had to pretend to get intimate with on camera.
“She sees us see each other and have this moment of like, ‘Hey, what’s up?’ She’s like, ‘Oh, how do you guys know each other?'”
The punchline? “Two of us now well into our 30s, I think, both blushed scarlet red, like how do you explain what that connection was?”
Mabius also confirmed the story a few years ago, adding they “were giggling about what our mothers would think if they knew that we were under the covers when we were shooting.”
Watch Joshua’s full Stress Test here:
Breaking the Mold
Despite the suggestive nature of the role, Jackson took the character seriously, bringing depth to what could have been a one-dimensional portrayal – especially at a time when gay film characters were few and far between.
“I was more concerned with making my character real,” Jackson told Entertainment Weekly years ago. “You didn’t see a lot of gay characters, period. But [especially] gay characters that weren’t caricatures.”
In an era when gay characters were often reduced to stereotypes, Jackson’s nuanced portrayal of Blaine stood out. “I wanted to make sure that, even with dialogue that was beautifully over-the-top, he still felt like a real person.”
It’s this dedication to craft that has kept Jackson in the spotlight for decades – from Dawson’s Creek to Fringe to his current starring role in ABC’s Doctor Odyssey.
- Watch Cruel Intentions on Amazon’s Prime Video (US)
- Watch Cruel Intentions on Amazon’s Prime Video (UK)