Playing the Bad Guy

John M. Jackson plays a lot of bad guys.

In “The Voice of the Prairie” (Back Alley, 1989), he savagely beat his blind daughter. In the just-wrapped Disney TV-movie “Parent Trap Vacation,” he is a shady real estate agent. In the recent film “Ginger Ale Afternoon,” he was a grouchy, philandering father-to-be. In last season’s “Wiseguy,” he was a whacked-out OCB agent who--caught making obscene phone calls on government lines--exacted revenge on Ken Wahl, tapping into a computer file and having him committed to a psycho ward.

“But I’ve also played a lot of cops and detectives,” says the actor, 39. In his current role, Jackson walks the good-bad line, playing an FBI agent working a sting operation in Matthew Witten’s “The Deal” (at the Back Alley to Oct. 29).

“I enjoy bad guys, because writers seem to enjoy writing them. But this guy means well. He’s pushed himself into a situation he can’t control, a trap he sets for himself. I think you could apply the same story to any business--take it out of the context of the FBI and into the human condition.”

The Louisiana-born, Texas-raised actor is also proud of a stage role he originated last year at the Cast in Gina Wendkos’ “Ginger Ale Afternoon,” playing opposite a then-very-pregnant Dana Andersen.

“Personally I thought it was better as a play,” he says of the well-received film version. “But actors always prefer stage. It’s just the nature of the beast: You get to go all the way through. There’s a whole rhythm and movement to it.” Granted, “Ginger Ale” was not a typical movie shoot. “It was a crazy situation,” says Jackson, who is now appearing in “Cold Sassy Tree” on TNT cable. “I think we actually shot on Dana’s due-date. I never knew if we were going to finish the film.”