Surface star Oliver Jackson-Cohen on playing a type

Oliver Jackson-Cohen has a type.

From a struggling addict in The Haunting of Hill House to the guy in The Invisible Man who tormented Elisabeth Moss, the English actor’s roles the past few years have been mostly deeply flawed people.

While he’s embraced the darker, sometimes scarier fare he’s mostly appeared in, his mother, fashion designer Betty Jackson says he needs a break.

Her comments came after he moved to Vancouver last year to work on the recently released thriller Surface.

“’You’re not going to play one of your sad boys, are you?’,” she asked him.

“I went, ‘What?’ She said, ‘You’re always (expletive) sad. Do something light that I can go and enjoy watching,’” the actor laughs. “So that sort of stuck with me.”

It’s been a busy few years. Jackson-Cohen’s recent career highlights include Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House series and its follow-up The Haunting of Bly Manor, as well as the Australian filmed thriller Invisible Man, and a role in the Oscar-nominated The Lost Daughter.

In Surface he stars opposite Gugu Mbatha-Raw as James, a husband desperately trying to keep the pretenses of a happy marriage afloat after an accident caused his wife, Sophie (Mbatha-Raw), to lose her long-term memory.

The more James tries to masquerade past problems, the more suspicious and distant Sophie becomes.

“There’s something so interesting when someone’s sitting on a bunch of secrets,” he says.

“That creates so much tension, and if you’re not allowed to say certain things and you’re holding so much back, it can be read in a multitude of different ways. Hopefully it’s worked and it does come across as overprotective or controlling or whatever it is — or, sinister.

“But hopefully, you know, as the show goes on and the layers are sort of peeled, you realise what is all underneath that.”

Veronica West, the creator and showrunner of the eight-part series says it’s the balance of mystique and likability that makes “something super special about Olly’s performance”.

“He’s got an intensity that can feel very dangerous, but also extremely charismatic and magnetic and draw you in. I remember the first time we got to meet in person.

“There was a song playing and he started doing a little shoulder dance and I was like, ‘That is the most goofy, charming thing on Earth.’

And we ended up writing it (in a scene,) he seems a little bit menacing in the subtext, but also has this immense charm to him. I think that’s the duality of James.”

Jackson-Cohen says he finds that playing flawed people is therapeutic.

“I don’t know what it says about me, but I’m drawn to the pain that’s in people. I find the release of that incredibly comforting, which sounds so messed up. It really does feel like an outlet which sounds like a complete and utter actor,” he says.

For now, Jackson-Cohen is back in Vancouver filming a series for Prime Video called Wilderness opposite Jenna Coleman, which he describes as “not lighthearted at all”.

Next up, he’s hoping there will be another season of “Surface” which he enjoys, in part, because he’s known Mbatha-Raw for years.

“I did one of my first ever jobs with Gugu when I was 19. We did like an episode of some very questionable BBC thing, we’ve known each other since then, and she’s such a wonderful human being.”

Surface is now streaming on Apple TV Plus.