Katie Holmes

Before Dawson's Creek

She returned to Toledo but her audition tapes continued to circulate. One reached the producers of a new show created by Kevin Williamson for Columbia Tri-Star Television: Dawson's Creek. Her appointment to read for it was unknowingly set by the producers for the same day as her high school production of Damn Yankees (she was playing Lola), but they permitted her to send a videotape rather than make her miss the show. Holmes read for the part of Joey, the tomboyish best friend of the title character, while her mother read Dawson's lines, including dialogue about sex and masturbation. Holmes won the part. Williamson said "She had those eyes, those eyes just stained with loneliness."

Winning the part and enchanting the press

At 5'9" (some sources say 5'7"), the tall brunette enchanted the press. "The Audrey Hepburn of her generation," was one typical comment. Variety, reviewing the pilot, said Holmes "is a confident young performer who delivers her lines with slyness and conviction." So good was Holmes that The New York Times Magazine would claim everyone in Hollywood was looking for the "Katie Holmes type" when casting shows. "The Katie Holmes type," the reporter claimed, "is a throwback to the 1950's: she is a smart girl next door (as opposed to the babe-o-rama blondes)"--the sort represented by her Dawson's Creek co-star Michelle Williams. But her "type" was no less attractive, Arena magazine declaring her "the most coquettishly sexy woman on television. Anywhere."

Dawson's Creek ran from 1998 to 2003 and Holmes was the only actor to appear in all 128 episodes. "It was very difficult for me to leave Wilmington, to have my little glass bubble burst and move on. I hate change. On the other hand it was refreshing to play someone else," she said in 2004. Holmes confirmed that, as is often the case on soaps, the character is a caricature of the actor:
:I miss her spirit, and her spunk, and I miss her anxiety. She always had these long speeches about her fears and her future and love. It was a great tool for me personally because I got to get it all out. I was able to psychoanalyze all of it everyday with her and then I wouldn't have to do it on my own. So much of me is in Joey and it really felt like I grew up on television.

Lesser success on the silver screen

In Wonder Boys (2000), the film version of the Michael Chabon novel, she had a small role (six and one-half minutes of screen time) as the tenant--and object of lust--of her English professor, played by Michael Douglas. In The Gift (2000), a Southern Gothic story directed by Sam Raimi and starring Cate Blanchett, she played the antithesis of Joey Potter: a slutty rich girl carrying on with everyone in town, from a white trash wife-beater (Keanu Reeves) to the district attorney (Gary Cole), and who winds up dead for her trouble. Holmes did her first nude scene for the film and said "I just hope there aren't a lot of pauses on DVD players." Her appearance deshabille was lamented by Variety's Steven Kloter: "It seems the only time we see a naked woman on screen is when someone like Katie Holmes needs to break with her sanitized WB past and march brazenly into a new future."

In Abandon (2002), written by Oscar winner Stephen Gaghan, Holmes was a delusional and homicidal college student named "Katie." Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times commended Holmes' performance and the film's intelligence, but other critics and audiences savaged it[1]. Holmes was the mistress of the public relations flack played by Colin Farrell in Phone Booth (2002) and Robert Downey, Jr's nurse in The Singing Detective (2003). Her next starring role was in Pieces of April (2003), a gritty comedy about a dysfunctional family on Thanksgiving. Variety said it was "one of her best film perf[ormance]s."

Holmes played the president's daughter in First Daughter, which was originally to be released in January 2004 on the same day as Chasing Liberty, the Mandy Moore film about a presidential daughter, but was ultimately released in September 2004 to dismal reviews and ticket sales. First Daughter, directed by Forest Whitaker, also starred Michael Keaton as Holmes's father and Marc Blucas as her love interest.

Upcoming roles

Television and endorsements

Engagement

See also