TORONTO – Donald Sutherland was once asked if there was a painful memory he drew upon when shooting a scene calling for tears. The veteran Canadian actor said he just cast his mind back to “Blue Monday,” Oct. 19, 1981. That was the day a ninth inning home run by L.A. Dodgers’ slugger Rick Monday knocked Sutherland’s beloved Montreal Expos out of their only shot at the World Series.

Joshua Jackson admits he, too, has a couple of touchstones he uses when called upon to show hurt, anger and sorrow — emotions he must show over and over again this season on “The Affair.” The award-winning Showtime drama airs Sunday nights on The Movie Network/Movie Central.

Jackson plays Cole Lockhart, whose marriage ends after his wife Alison (Ruth Wilson) has an affair with a writer named Noah (Dominic West). Noah’s marriage to Helen (Maura Tierney) is also destroyed by the infidelity.

The two divorces take their toll on all four characters, but Cole seems especially lost and wounded early in season 2. Jackson, in Toronto this week to promote the series, says his touchstones for sorrow have changed over the years, “because I find if you go there too often, they lose their power.”

The Vancouver-native didn’t spell out which memories bring the tears for him, but he could borrow Sutherland’s trick and take the sports shortcut to sorrow. The way his Canucks lost in the 2011 Stanley Cup final is “unforgivable,” says Jackson. “I went through all the stages — grief, anger, even denial.”

Jackson, who won a best actor Genie Award for the 2008 Canadian indie feature “One Week,” has enjoyed some of the best reviews of his career for “The Affair.” His life changed in 1998 when he was cast as Pacey Witter on the popular teen drama “Dawson’s Creek.” He spent another five seasons on the Fox sci-fi series “The Fringe.”

He admits crying on cue has been a struggle in the past. As he says, “Boys are told they don’t cry.”

What makes it easier on “The Affair,” he finds, are the scripts, many penned by series co-creator Sarah Treem.

“When the words are right,” he says, “when it’s really well written, the emotions flow out of the scene and you don’t have to work that hard.”

The psychological drama is known for its parallel storylines, with scenes played over through the eyes of different characters.

It’s a fascinating device, and, as Jackson puts it, “the central hook of the show,” but some viewers and critics felt it led to a dissatisfying, manipulative end to season 1.

“I think it’s a legitimate criticism,” says Jackson. “The way that those memories diverged was too distracting for an audience member or critic to actually stay inside the story.”

The 37-year-old feels Treem and the other writers learned their lesson. Season 2 is much more linear and there are fewer places of intersection, less “laying paint over the same canvas.”

Jackson says viewers will get more direct answers this season. They’ll find out, for example, who killed the character who died at the end of season 1.

He also says Cole will continue to take steps — “slowly and stumblingly” — towards finding out what it takes to be a man.

Does he think two people can have different memories of the same occurrence? Yes he does.

He knows this “from the perspective of nine-and-a-half years of my better half,” he says, referring to his relationship with German actress Diane Kruger (“Inglorious Basterds”).

“There are precious stories inside of our relationship that we just don’t tell anymore because there are fights. It’s a fight! You know?”

A phrase he hears on those occasions: “It’s impossible that you can remember it not just differently, but wrong!”

Other shows have dealt with infidelity, trauma and loss in the past, he says.

“The thing that sets this show apart, and the reason it is so dangerous for couples to watch together, is because exactly that moment that happens when you’re sitting on the couch and your wife turns to you and says, ‘You see? That’s exactly what I was telling you — you never remember!’”

— Bill Brioux is a freelance TV columnist based in Brampton, Ont.

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version had an incorrect byline.