How Oliver Jackson-Cohen Built His Confidence to Act on ‘The Haunting of Bly Manor’

The following interview for Backstage’s on-camera series The Slate was compiled in part by Backstage readers just like you! Follow us on Twitter (@Backstage) and Instagram (@backstagecast) to stay in the loop on upcoming interviews and to submit your questions.

Oliver Jackson-Cohen is making 2020 his year. Following the February release of the critically acclaimed “Invisible Man” remake, in which he starred as the titular villain alongside Elisabeth Moss, he wrapped filming on “The Haunting of Bly Manor,” the follow-up to Netflix’s “The Haunting of Hill House” on which he also starred. While quarantining in Greece before filming his latest screen project, Jackson-Cohen spoke with Backstage as part of our Slate programming about “Bly Manor” (premiering Oct. 9) and emphasized the one core tenet of his acting work: making every character he plays his own.

“Bly Manor” carries over some “Hill House” themes, but sets itself apart.
“It’s a very different story. It’s sort of an homage to Henry James and ‘The Turn of the Screw’ and a couple other of his ghost stories. And it’s a very different direction than ‘Hill House’ was. ‘Hill House’ was centered around a family; this is a story about strangers coming together and forming a family. And fundamentally, the show’s about love, which is quite an odd thing to explore in horror, but Mike is so clever—Mike Flanagan, who created both shows—and so he’s found a way to explore all the darker sides of love and what that does. And similar to the first season, the idea of ghosts—ghosts don’t have to be these spectral things. They are things in our lives that follow us and things that have been an imprint on our life, and he’s done that in a  way that’s made it about love.”

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Jackson-Cohen still prefers self-tapes over live auditions.
“I’m terrible at auditions, and I have to do this thing where I keep on telling myself I’m not. But I just find the whole process so strange, and it’s not a natural or comfortable experience. I have this thing that acting is that base of stuff—you listen and you respond, and so it’s a sort of ping-pong match that goes on. And if the reader is sort of doing this [staring down at a script] and not looking at you, I find it so weird because it then becomes a fake performance that you’re doing. So whenever I have the option, I’ll go, ‘I’ll tape, thank you!’ And then I’ll go and meet them to have a chat, but I’ll tape. But my biggest thing is just breathe. That’s my other thing: Just breathe, and accept that [auditions] are the weirdest circumstances and that you’ll just do your best.”

Gaining confidence in your choices as an actor can take time.
“I feel it’s important to defend something that you really, truly believe and think is right for a character, but ultimately, you’ll just get fired [early on]. I was so worried of just getting fired, so I’d just be like, ‘I’ll do what you want!’ But I think over time you build up a certain amount of confidence, of trusting not that you know better, but what you feel is going to be a choice. And maybe it’s not [the director’s] desired choice, but it will resonate honestly in a way for you.”

Now, Jackson-Cohen finds himself in every script and character he takes on…
“The idea of ‘playing a part’ is something that I find quite strange. I think that it always has to come from somewhere in you, so that’s the first step, is finding how to tap into something and then make it your own. And I know, with ‘Bly Manor,’ for example, [my character] Peter [Quint], on the page, the idea of Peter was very different from what I ended up bringing to it, and I kept on saying to Mike, it would be more interesting or more human if we explored this part.”

…and he encourages other actors to do the same.
“At the beginning, I was just sort of doing what I was told and doing what I thought people wanted me to do or wanted of me. And I think something changes when you start to go, ‘Well, hold on a minute. Where does this lie within me? What can I bring?’ There has to be this kind of click within you to know that you can be of service to the story, of service to the character.”

Want to hear more from Jackson-Cohen? Watch our full interview below, and follow us on Instagram: @backstagecast.