Set in the fictional small town of Capeside, Mass., the popular WB teen drama Dawson’s Creek focused on a core group of friends whose love lives, hopes and dreams intertwined as they figured out their way through high school and college. The show managed to cover weighty issues like mental health, death and homophobia among typical teenage fare like prom dates, new friends and first love.
James Van Der Beek led the ensemble cast as Dawson Leery, a wannabe filmmaker who has his heart set on his own happily ever after with one of his best friends, Joey Potter (Katie Holmes). Dawson’s other best friend, Pacey Whitter (Joshua Jackson), and Capeside newbie Jen Lindley (Michelle Williams) put a crinkle in Dawson’s carefully plotted-out future.
With Paula Cole’s “I Don’t Want to Wait” as the theme song probably still stuck in your head, Dawson’s Creek helped launch its young stars into the spotlight. Here’s what the cast is up to now.
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James Van Der Beek as Dawson Leery
James Van Der Beek, in the titular role as Dawson Leery, has filled most of his time with TV pursuits, including ABC’s comedy Don’t Trust the B—- In Apartment 23, on which he played a version of himself — and scored a Teen Choice Award nomination, hearkening back to his Dawson’s days.
The Pose actor lives in Texas with wife Kimberly and their six young kids: Olivia, Joshua, Annabel, Emilia, Gwendolyn and Jeremiah. In November of 2024, he announced he had been diagnosed with colorectal cancer, though told PEOPLE, “There’s reason for optimism, and I’m feeling good.”
When it comes to nostalgia for Dawson’s, Van Der Beek isn’t too keen on revisiting the series.
“It’s something I did so long ago,” he previously said. “It’s something I feel a real distance from, to be honest.”
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Katie Holmes as Joey Potter
Fittingly for the woman who portrayed Capeside High valedictorian Joey Potter, Katie Holmes went back to school for a time, even attending the Entertainment, Media and Sports program at Harvard University to further skills for her production company, Noelle Productions Inc.
Aside from raising Suri (her daughter with ex-husband Tom Cruise), Holmes has devoted much of her time to film and TV, including multiple stints portraying Jackie Kennedy and directing and co-writing the 2023 film Rare Objects. She currently stars in Broadway’s Our Town.
Holmes has harbored fond Dawson’s memories, previously saying it was a “special show, and I loved every minute of it.”
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Joshua Jackson as Pacey Witter
Joshua Jackson, the Fatal Attraction and Doctor Odyssey star, previously expressed that a Dawson’s reboot would be “shocking” to fans.
“We are not cute kids anymore,” he joked on The Ellen DeGeneres Show in 2016, per EW. “It’s been a long time. I mean, we’re holding up okay, but I think if you put the four of us now next to the four of us them, it might be a little shocking.”
In early 2023, he returned to Wilmington, North Carolina — where Dawson’s Creek was filmed — to shoot a new series from Ava DuVernay.
Jackson, who played Pacey Witter in the series, wed Jodie Turner-Smith in 2019, though the pair split in 2023. Together they have one child.
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Michelle Williams as Jen Lindley
Once Capeside’s resident occasional bad girl, Michelle Williams has “made good” with a serious career on the big screen, earning several Oscar nominations, including a Best Actress nod in 2023 for Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans.
Williams is mom to daughter Matilda Rose, with late actor Heath Ledger, as well as two children with husband Thomas Kail.
Hopes for a Dawson’s reboot are also lost on the star, whose character Jen Lindley (SPOILER ALERT) didn’t make it to the series finale alive.
“I would have to come back as a ghost — or put a lot of filters on the camera, and I’ll do flashback scenes,” she previously said.
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Meredith Monroe as Andie McPhee
Since her days playing high-strung Andie McPhee, Meredith Monroe has built her TV-acting résumé with recurring roles on Criminal Minds, Hart of Dixie and 13 Reasons Why, and guest spots on a crop of other popular series.
During a cast reunion interview, she told Entertainment Weekly in 2018 that shooting the series in Wilmington, North Carolina, “was like growing up together. I felt like I was so grateful that it was shooting in Wilmington. We all got to really connect in a way that I don’t think we would have had we been in New York or L.A.”
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Kerr Smith as Jack McPhee
After playing Jack McPhee, Andie’s older brother who comes to terms with his homosexuality throughout the series, Kerr Smith landed roles on The Fosters, Life Unexpected, Charmed and Riverdale.
Smith’s favorite memory from Dawson’s comes from the actors’ group trips to the beach.
“In the summer, we as a cast would go to Masonboro Island [North Carolina]. We’d get out the grill and go Jet Skiing and swimming. It was the most fun I ever had in my life,” he previously told PEOPLE.
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Busy Philipps as Audrey Liddell
Busy Philipps, who played Joey Potter’s college roommate, has stayed booked and busy on series like Cougar Town and Girls5eva. She will also play Regina George’s mom in the 2024 musical remake of Mean Girls.
The Cougar Town star has two children, Cricket and Birdie, with estranged husband Marc Silverstein.
Off-screen, she has remained close to Dawson’s bestie, Williams; the pair have frequented red carpets together and reunited for girls’ days out.
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John Wesley Shipp as Mitch Leery
Dawson’s dad played father to another iconic TV protagonist, Barry Allen, on The CW’s The Flash, a superhero John Wesley Shipp portrayed on TV in the ’90s.
During the cast’s 2018 reunion, Shipp recalled how the series’ dialogue was groundbreaking for the times: “I remember a big star who shall remain nameless said to Kevin [Williamson, the show’s creator], ‘Young people don’t talk like that,’ ” Shipp told Entertainment Weekly. “Kevin said, ‘Well, maybe not, but they’d like to.’ We had a feeling that we were pioneering a different way of telling stories about young people.”
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Mary-Margaret Humes as Gail Leery
Following her days playing Dawson’s anchorwoman mom, Mary-Margaret Humes has acted in several Hallmark and Lifetime TV movies. She has been married to Raul A. Bruce since 1992.
She told EW she happened to be with star Van Der Beek the first time he was ever asked for an autograph after Dawson’s Creek premiered.
“He signed it and said, ‘Oh my God, Mary-Margaret, that was my first!’ And, of course, my thought was, ‘Oh, honey, hang on,’ ” she said.
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Nina Repeta as Bessie Potter
Since playing big sis to Holmes’ Joey, Nina Repeta has continued to act in various films and has sparked a music career, singing everything from the blues to jazz. She is also involved in music therapy, singing jazz in local memory care units.
“[It] has allowed me to have a front-row seat to the miraculous power of music,” Repeta told PEOPLE. “Patients who have been unresponsive for weeks will light up and even sing along to tunes they recognize and love. It is, by far, one of the most fulfilling moments for me as an artist to use music therapy and see its results instantly.”
Repeta’s son Banks Repeta, who she shares with husband Mike Repeta, has also followed in her footsteps by forging his own acting career with roles in 2021’s The Black Phone and 2022’s Armageddon Time, the latter of which earned him a Critics’ Choice Awards nomination in 2023.
“I do feel like I have passed the acting torch to our son Banks,” Repeta told PEOPLE. “[At the Critics’ Choice Awards], we got to hang out briefly with [Michelle] Williams and [Busy] Philipps at the ceremony. As long as he continues to enjoy it, I feel like he will continue his journey as a film actor.”
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Mary Beth Peil as Evelyn “Grams” Ryan
Jen’s “Grams” has worked steadily in post-Dawson’s years: Mary Beth Peil had recurring roles on The Good Wife and Katy Keene and many turns on Broadway, including the Dowager Empress in Anastasia.
When Williams was honored at the 2022 Gotham Awards, she used her time to thank Peil for influencing her and taking her under her wing.
“Mary Beth Peil was the first artist that I had ever met in my life. She didn’t call herself that, but there was something different about her,” Williams said. “It was the way she asked questions, the way that she leaned into conversations, and how excited she seemed for every moment of every day on our TV set. And I didn’t know what this ineffable quality was, but I knew I wanted to pull my chair closer to hers.”
Source: People
