Joshua Jackson Says This Cancer Conversation Could Save Lives (Exclusive)

Joshua Jackson knows that many people avoid talking about cancer. But the beloved Dawson's Creek and Mighty Ducks actor is hoping that a surprising campaign he starred in alongside the Philadelphia Flyers mascot Gritty will change that. He exclusively spoke to Men's Journal about encouraging people to talk to their doctors about screenings so that lives can be saved through early cancer detection.

Jackson and Gritty have teamed up with AstraZeneca for a new Get Body Checked Against Cancer campaign ad. It encourages people to talk to their doctors about their cancer risk factors and the screenings that are right for them. GetBodyChecked.com provides guidance for people who aren't sure how to get the conversation started with the doctor and information about the screenings that are available. The ad features a hilarious line of dialogue: "If you watched me on your screens when I was a kid and you were a kid, then you should be talking to your doctor about which cancer screenings might be right for you."

Why Joshua Jackson Joined a Cancer Screening Campaign

Men’s Journal: What initially drew you to this campaign?

Joshua Jackson: Well, to the specific campaign, what drew me was that AstraZeneca was trying to have this conversation in the lightest way possible. So, putting me and Gritty and the ad that we made, trying to find a light way into a heavy conversation, the concept of people needing to go get screened and of screening being available. We have so much available to us now to be able to detect things early and get ahead of bad news.

I'm in that age cohort where I need to be proactive about my own health. And that's become something that I was confronted with over the course of the last couple of years. So, I thought it was a natural fit. And then, you know, I'm a massive lifelong hockey fan. The opportunity to make an ad with Gritty was a big thumbs up for me.

Men’s Journal: I thought the concept of the ad was absolutely hysterical. The moment where you say, “If you watched me on your screens when I was a kid, and you were a kid, then you should be talking to your doctor about which cancer screenings might be right for you,” was absolutely hysterical. I was curious if that was a huge part of the appeal for you.

Joshua Jackson: Yeah. I know that I'm not great at having these difficult conversations. Usually when I go to the doctor, it’s like, “How are you feeling?” “I feel great.” “What's been going on?” “Nothing.” “How are you doing?” “It's great.” “You've been eating well?” “Eating well.” You know? I'm not naturally a good advocate for myself in that space. So, I thought it was smart to have the ad be something that you could chuckle at. Because I just think that this is a hard conversation and people—I don't want to be in it. You don't want to be in it. Nobody wants to really talk about cancer, right?

To have the ad make you chuckle a little bit, maybe it gets you to go to GetBodyChecked.com. And then you see, “Oh, I'll just put in my zip code. And oh, wow, these are providers that are in my neighborhood. Oh, wait, here's some test questions that I should ask my doctor just to get the ball rolling of being in the conversation. Am I at risk for this? Am I at risk for that? What should I be doing to help myself?” And I thought that was really a smart way into the conversation.

Men’s Journal: I thought it was genius. Just to share something with you really quickly. One of the reasons why I jumped at it the chance to talk to you is because my uncle has battled cancer twice recently. He first got diagnosed by pure accident. He got badly injured and when he sought help for that, they happened to discover it. So, the injury actually saved his life. Then he got declared cancer-free. And because at that point he had a doctor who was very proactive with him, they started testing his blood weekly. When, he began developing cancer again, those tests allowed it to be caught extremely quickly.

His story reflects the importance of a campaign like this in two ways because not being screened for cancer almost took his life, and then proactively being tested saved his life. Having watched what he went through from afar, I just think that this campaign is just absolutely fantastic.

Joshua Jackson: One, I'm very happy to hear that your uncle's okay. And two, almost every family has been touched by cancer, unfortunately, at some point or another. In our parents' generation, you just didn't have the opportunity to detect cancer. We've come so far in what is available for us on the testing side and the screening side. And yet culturally, particularly us men, we're not great about being like, “Hey, you know, maybe I should know for sure if this is a threat to me.”

Being a part of this campaign just hopefully makes it a little bit less taboo. Next time you're going to the doctor to get your annual checkup and you're like, “You know, this has been on my mind. And here's a couple of questions that you can get on the website of, let me just see if this applies to me and what screening is available to me.”

Hockey has a story like this from a couple of years ago. An assistant coach for the Canucks, an oncology resident… I'm going to butcher this story, but there was somebody who was sitting two rows behind the bench and saw a mole on the back of his neck and was like, “Hey, you need to get this checked out." Here's a person who works in professional sports, has doctors around him all the time, spends time around modern medical facilities, and it takes a girl sitting two rows behind him to save his life from cancer. I'm glad that his life was saved, but there's no reason for it to be that dramatic. (Laughs)

We can be better about this. So, if watching me and Gritty be goofy on camera inspires you to go to the website, great. And then take that inspiration and go talk to your doctor.

Men’s Journal: The other thing I thought was really great about the ad is that you were kind of having fun with it. Going back to my uncle, a tiny bit more, he was telling me that when he was being treated for cancer, people treated him differently. They acted as though he was broken or they didn’t know how to talk to him even though he was the same person. Having a campaign like this out there to try to destigmatize, have a little fun with it, and highlight that these are just people like you or I is really, really powerful. I really applaud the effort in that regard, too.

Joshua Jackson: Good. Yeah, and that's the other side of it. Should you or someone you know wind up becoming a patient in this? Then the other thing that GetBodyChecked.com is good for is how to be a good person in somebody's life. Right? So, you don't treat them like a China doll after they get a diagnosis. They just have a diagnosis. There are things to be done, there are ways to be helpful, and there are ways to be supportive.

That's another thing. I mean, cancer is scary. We're all scared of it. And we all treat it like a ghost in the corner that nobody wants to talk about. But it doesn't have to be that scary, right? And a lot of it is treatable. And if you get ahead of it, if you detect it early, you have a way, way, way, way better chance than if you catch it late. And then being a good family member or a good coworker and not suddenly treating somebody like they've sprouted a second head because they have this diagnosis. That's not super helpful to what they're going through. If all of a sudden you're like, “Oh God, I don't know what to do with you.”

Men’s Journal: Yeah, for sure. I do have to ask you, when I was watching the ad, I was a little bit outraged at the waste of that Philly cheesesteak. Did you think, “That's just outrageous,” at the waste of good cheesesteak?”

Joshua Jackson: Yeah, not only that. Are you from Philly?

Men’s Journal: No, I'm from Ontario, Canada.

Joshua Jackson: Have you ever been to Philly?

Men’s Journal: No.

Joshua Jackson: Okay, we don't really have a corollary to this in Canada, but it'd be like poutine or Montreal smoked beef. Gritty is a Philly boy. We were in California shooting this when the cheesesteak arrived and Gritty was like, “No, you can't put that on camera. I have to go back to Philly. This is not a cheesesteak. This is just not going to work."

Men’s Journal: That's hilarious.

Joshua Jackson: Not only do we chuck the sandwich against the window, but Gritty had to fix the cheesesteak because it is that serious there. Like, you cannot mess with this.

Men’s Journal: That’s awesome. One last thing on the campaign, for someone who is reluctant to talk to their doctor about cancer out of fear, what advice would you give them?

Joshua Jackson: That is one of the things that the website is good for. If you go on the website, it actually gives you test questions. You literally don't have to do the homework. You can just go in and hit copy and paste to get the conversation started.

You have to go talk to your doctor. That's the first step. But if you don't have the questions to ask or your brain just freezes, or you get shy about it, you can just ask the first four questions from the website, and it'll get the ball rolling for you.

Look, we're both Canadian men, and I've lived in America for a long time. This is not something that we're excellent at, right? We are raised to be like, “Is it broken? No? So, you're fine.” And there's just not a culture in which we're not the touchiest, feeliest group of men. And, we don't reach out to our doctors, and we don't go to the hospital sometimes when we should. And we don't take care of ourselves because that's like, “Whatever, I'll be fine. Everything's all good.”

If this is an uncomfortable conversation for you to have, just go to the website, take the cheat sheet, just repeat the cheat sheet to get you started.