Joel Jackson
Cast - Taking Liberty by Ingle Knight
Joel Jackson
Cast - Taking Liberty by Ingle Knight
Joel Jackson is a Logie and Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Award winning actor, producer and musician.
In 2023, Joel starred in Virginia Gay’s adaptation of Cyrano for Black Swan State Theatre and Melbourne Theatre Company as part of the Perth International Festival.
In 2022, Joel had a stellar year on main stage Australian theatre, leading a stellar cast including Mandy McElhinney in The Glass Menagerie and then starred alongside Steve Le Marquand in Barracking for the Umpire, both for Black Swan State Theatre Company. Joel also led the Screenwest short film Raising Thunder (2022), which has gone on to receive feature development funding.
Prior to this, Joel reprised his leading role in Ms. Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries (2021) as Detective James Steed and also played Nick Cassidy in the Netflix feature film, shot in Perth, I Met a Girl (2021) and Detective McBride in the ABC’s award winning Mystery Road 2 (2020), shot in Broome, which opened the Berlinale TV Festival.
In 2019, Joel co-starred in the West Australian film H is for Happiness as Rich Uncle Brian. The film won the Berlin International Film Festival Generation Prize and also the coveted CinefestOz Best Feature and at the Melbourne International Film Festival was the Audience Award Runner Up.
Further credits include Greg McLean’s highly acclaimed action adventure film, Jungle (2017) with a stellar cast led by Daniel Radcliffe, and the AACTA and International Emmy award- winning Matchbox Pictures mini-series, Safe Harbour (2018).
Celebrated for his highly acclaimed portrayal of Peter Allen in Channel Seven’s miniseries AACTA Award-winning Peter Allen: Not The Boy Next Door (2015), Joel Jackson received the AACTA Award for Best Lead Actor in a Television Drama and the TV Week Logie Award for Most Outstanding Newcomer – Actor for his performance. Peter Allen: Not The Boy Next Door also received a Programme Long Fiction nomination in the Festival de Television de Monte-Carlo Golden Nymph Awards, with Joel nominated in the Outstanding Actor category alongside acclaimed actor Mark Rylance.
Upon graduating from NIDA, Joel’s was cast as Charles Bean in the award-winning World War I miniseries, Deadline Gallipoli (2015) alongside Sam Worthington, Hugh Dancy, and Charles Dance. The role earned him a second AACTA Award nomination for Best Lead Actor in a Television Drama in the same year as his portrayal of Peter Allen.
Joel has an extensive list of TV and short film credits including The Hunted (2018), The Wrong Girl (2017) and Hyde and Seek (2016). The short film Stranger (2017), was based on a Sam Shepard poem that Joel adapted. He then produced and co-wrote the final script, starring as the lead in the short that took out an Award of Excellence at the Global Shorts
Film Festival in LA. Stranger also screened at Flickerfest and St Kilda Film Festival in the Best of Australian categories in 2018 and 2019.
An accomplished musician and singer, Joel’s latest single Currents was produced by multi ARIA award winner Joel Quartermain (Eskimo Joe) and produced by eight time golden guitar winner Rod McCormack (Paul Kelly, Kasey Chambers, Lee Kernaghan).
Onstage Joel has also led productions for Melbourne Theatre Company in Born Yesterday (2017) and more recently for Fremantle Theatre Company, leading their sell out Shakespeare in the Park season of Midsummer Night’s Dream (2021).
Having grown up in the Pilbara of North Western Australia, Joel played for the Western Australian Under 18’s State Soccer Country Team, represented the State as an exchange student in Brazil and was President of the Youth Advisory Board in Karratha from 2008-2009. In 2010 Joel was recognised as the region’s Young Australian of the Year. Joel has performed at Telethon from 2018-2021, at the Western Australian of the Year Awards from 2016-2020 and is a Patron for CinefestOz Albany and an ambassador for CinefestOz Busselton and was chair of the Cinesnaps Competition Jury in 2018 and again in 2021.
In 2021, Joel created and completed The Lap; A Live Ride for Young Lives, a 45 day long 12,000km motorbike ride around the entirety of WA with his Father and Mother, raising over $38,000 for Telethon through 38 live performances, school visits, film screenings and much more. Joel collaborated, as the sole producer and creator, with press, sponsors, event staff, schools, local government, community elders to make the event a success. A heroic effort in the height of the COVID outbreak.
In life outside acting, Joel is an Officer Cadet for the Infantry in the Australian Army Reserve.