Courtesy Sony Pictures Elkins resident Cindy Jackson, left, portrays a UPS driver who is berated by a character played by movie legend Tom Hanks, right, in the hit film ‘A Man Called Otto.’

Jackson

ELKINS — Local moviegoers may have recently watched screen legend Tom Hanks performing a scene in a hit movie with a veteran actor who is a resident of Elkins.

In the current release — Sony Pictures’ “A Man Called Otto” — Hanks, playing a grumpy senior citizen, berates a UPS driver for parking on his street while delivering packages. The driver is played by Elkins native Cindy Jackson.

“I’ve been very fortunate,” Jackson told The Inter-Mountain this week. “I feel very lucky to be paid to act, which is something I’ve always loved to do and have done for free many times. It’s my passion and I love it.”

Jackson is an Elkins High School graduate who played for the Tigers girls basketball squad. She grew up in Elkins as a huge comedy fan, obsessing over “Saturday Night Live” and once getting in trouble for quoting lines from the comedy classic “Airplane” over and over in class.

After high school Jackson studied theater at West Virginia University, where she played trumpet in the Mountaineer Marching Band.

While at WVU, she took an unusual entrance into professional show business by playing a dead body on the iconic TV show “Law & Order.”

“For the audition, they had me submit a photo of myself lying down,” Jackson said with a laugh. After being chosen for the job she had to arrange transportation for herself to New York City for the shoot.

“It was just a fun thing to do, just a cool experience, trying to get a start in acting,” she said.

After college, Jackson performed onstage in theater in Pittsburgh and also won roles in several TV shows and films. Ever the comedy lover, she also trained at the famous Second City theaters in Toronto and Chicago, and with the Upright Citizens Brigade in New York City.

She also worked for years as a paramedic in the Pittsburgh area, earning certification as an Emergency Medical Technician-Paramedic.

“I loved it,” she said of her years as a paramedic. “But it’s a very difficult job, very draining, both emotionally and physically.”

Gradually, role by role, Jackson built up her acting resume.

“I felt like things really started to come together for me around 2014,” she said, adding that having an agent opened many doors for her to audition for acting jobs.

In recent years she has appeared in shows such as Netflix’s “Mindhunter” and ABC’s “Downward Dog.”

Jackson moved back to Elkins in 2016 to care for her ill father, James Jackson, and her mother, Carol Jackson, who was suffering from Alzheimer’s. Her father passed away in 2017, and her mother followed in 2021.

“It has been very special for me to be back in Elkins, and I love living here,” Jackson said. “Living here keeps me happy and very grounded, and I can still audition, much of which is now down on tape and virtually.”

Jackson said she was thrilled to win the UPS driver role in “Otto,” which was shot in Pittsburgh last March. She confessed to being a bit nervous to perform face-to-face with two-time Oscar winner Hanks.

“It was almost surreal when I first saw him in person, because he’s so famous and I’ve seen him in so many movies, but he was very nice and friendly,” she said. “Before the scene started filming he made a point of going around and speaking to everyone.

“He came up to me and said, ‘Hi, I’m Tom,’ like I might not know who he was,” she said with a laugh. “He asked me questions, asked me where I was from. I told him West Virginia and he asked a lot of questions about the state. He said he didn’t think he and his wife Rita had ever been to West Virginia but he was interested in coming here, and he asked me about different areas.

“While we were filming, he was just extremely positive and very complimentary. It was a great experience,” she said.

Jackson noted that COVID-19 protocols were in place while shooting the movie, but added that the safety restrictions have relaxed somewhat since the beginning of the pandemic.

“For a while we would literally be under a lockdown-type situation in shooting a show or a movie,” she said. “We would all be in the same hotel, and it was like being in a bubble, no one could leave. That was very challenging.

“Now things have eased up quite a bit, but there are still many precautions, including testing, that every production follows to keep everyone as safe as possible. I’m very used to the protocol now, whereas when the pandemic began it was all so new and strange.”

Jackson’s acting career seems to be picking up steam this year.

Along with “Otto” being a 2023 release, in January she was in California to shoot four episodes of “For All Mankind,” a sci-fi show on Apple TV+ about NASA astronauts and their families.

“It was their last four episodes of the season, it was very exciting,” she said. “The episodes should be available on Apple TV+ later this year.”

On Saturday, Feb. 25, a movie Jackson appears in that was filmed in Fairmont will air on the Lifetime Channel at 8 p.m.

Jackson said she enjoyed working on “12 Desperate Hours,” starring Samantha Mathis and directed by actress Gina Gershon.

“It was such a pleasure to shoot a professional, normal-budget movie in West Virginia,” Jackson said. “I had done some very low-budget movies shot in West Virginia, but this was different.

“There are four more movies set to shoot in West Virginia this year, which I think is very exciting. I want people to know what I’ve been able to do, working in TV and movies, in case it is something that they are also interested in doing,” she said. “I want people to know it is possible, and I’m hoping people who have a real passion for it might be able to learn from what I’ve done and be able to do it themselves.”

“A Man Called Otto” is currently playing at Elkins Cinema 8. As of Friday, the film had pulled in more than $54 million at the American box office, and totaled more than $84 million around the world.