Interesting Facts You May Not Have Known About Dawson’s Creek

Almost 23 years ago, on January 20, 1998 (while I was in college) Dawson's Creek made its debut. As freshmen in college (almost the same age as Katie Holmes IRL) - I had instantly found my new small-screen obsession in the teenage drama, along with a twenty-plus year fan love for Katie Holmes.

The series, created by Kevin Williamson, was centered around a tight-knit group of friends. Dawson Leery (James Van Der Beek), Joey Potter (Katie Holmes), Pacey Witter (Joshua Jackson), and Jen Lindley (Michelle Williams) were the main four, living in the fictional and picturesque town of Capeside, Massachusetts.

It didn't take long for Dawson’s, which ended up having a six season run, to become a pop culture phenomenon and one of my all-time favorite shows. Now, re-watching the entire series with my youngest daughter, we have been looking up random facts about the show and I just had to share some things we found interesting, that even I never heard before.

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Producer Paul Stupin read Kevin Williamson’s Scream script and asked him if he had any ideas for TV shows, it was then that he came up with the idea to create a show based on himself and his friends as they were growing up.

Williamson pitched Dawson’s Creek as "Some Kind of Wonderful, meets Pump Up the Volume, meets James at 15, meets My So-Called Life, meets Little House on the Prairie".

Williamson created the character of Dawson and says Dawson was “basically him as a teen.”
Williamson had also spent his time making his own movies and idolizing Steven Spielberg. Dawson’s Creek was also a real place where Williamson would hang out with his friends.

The character of Pacey was based on one of Willamson’s real friends, who was also named Pacey.

Joey was also based on one of Williamson’s best friends, Fanny.
Fanny would sail to his house because it was closer by water than by road, and she would also sleep in his room at night, just like Joey does with Dawson.

Joey had a boy’s name, not only because she was a tomboy, but Williamson also used “Joey” as a private shout-out to his own sexuality. At the time he was writing the pilot, Williamson never thought he’d actually get to write a gay storyline- {although he did later with Jack in Season 2, more to come about the creation of Jack…}

Williamson had said that all of the major plot points, especially in the first two seasons, were taken directly from his life or from the lives of the other writers. Williamson has admitted that his family sometimes got uncomfortable with how closely the storylines resembled their real lives.

Selma Blair was also being considered for the role of Joey, but Katie Holmes had won over the creators with an audition tape she had filmed at home, with her mother playing Dawson.

Holmes initially refused to fly out to LA to meet with the creators because she was committed to starring in her high school’s play and she didn’t want to let her friends down. So the creators waited two weeks for her to be finished with the school play.

Katie Holmes and Joshua Jackson had immediate chemistry when they first met on set. They were both 18 at the start of the show and ending up dating in real life for a year.

Katie told Rolling Stone in 1998, “I'm just going to say that I met somebody last year. I fell in love, I had my first love, and it was something so incredible and indescribable that I will treasure it always."

The science project episode in Season 1 was what originally gave the writers the idea to get Joey and Pacey together, but they delayed the plot because they wanted to be careful not to  sacrifice the characters’ likability.

Greg Berlanti pitched the Joey and Pacey plotline in Season 3 because it was what he wanted to see “as a fanboy”.

Joshua Jackson was up for the roles of both Pacey and Dawson, before the creators decided he was a better fit for Pacey.

Adrian Grenier also auditioned for the role of Dawson.

Dawson was the very last role to be cast, with James Van Der Beek getting the part the day before production started on the pilot.

At the time, the studio wasn’t convinced that James Van Der Beek was right for the role, but Kevin Williamson insisted he was, stating: “I wrote Dawson! I am Dawson! This is Dawson!”.

Alanis Morrisette’s “Hand In My Pocket” was originally meant to be the theme song, but they couldn’t get the rights to it.

Kevin Williamson and Paul Stupin shot the candid footage used in the main title sequence. The actors were told it was for a presentation and would never make it to air.

James Van Der Beek and Joshua Jackson lived together during filming of the first season, and Katie Holmes and Jackson dated, with Holmes describing him as “first love”.

Dawson’s Season 1 hair was inspired byBrad Pitt in The Devil’s Own.

The show creators had to get Steven Spielberg’s permission to use posters and short clips from his movies in the show. He watched the pilot and gave his approval, but requested that they take out a line where Dawson describes Jen as reminding him of Spielberg’s wife Kate Capshaw.

Jen’s grandfather was originally meant to wake up and be OK in Season 1, but the writer’s couldn’t find a way to include him in the story, so they ended up killing him off.

There were concerns the show was too “racy” in the beginning, and the writers had to change explicit references to masturbation to the euphemistic “walk your dog”.

The most complaints Dawson’s Creek got was about the Season 1 storyline were Pacey sleeps with his teacher.

While most of the cast were older than their teen characters, Mary Beth Peil, who played Grams, was much younger, and makeup was used to age her.

Kevin Williamson says Pacey’s Season 2 plotline was influenced by An Officer and a Gentleman, and he refers to the season as “Pacey’s Pond”.

Kevin Williamson left the show after Season 2 to create the drama Wasteland, which was cancelled after one season.

The coming out storyline involving Jack in Season 2 was based on writer Greg Berlanti’s own experiences at high school, right down to the poem that Jack reads in class.

When Jack kissed Ethan in the Season 3 finale, it was the first romantic kiss between two male characters on primetime TV.

Greg Berlanti, by then the showrunner, threatened to quit if the network didn’t allow the kiss to happen.

James Van Der Beek thinks the show jumped the shark with the Season 2 plotline where Joey wears a wire to catch her drug-dealing dad, but that it got back on the right track in following seasons.

Writer Tom Kapinos called the Eve arc in Season 3 a “colossal mistake”, and Kevin Williamson says that it was one of his least favorite plots. (I always thought it was so odd, they basically introduced Jen’s long lost half sister and then we never heard of her again!)

John Wesley Shipp, who played Mitch Leery, wanted to leave the show because he didn’t believe the adult characters were getting enough interesting storylines, so he agreed to be killed off.  Tom Kapinos says he regrets the way Mitch was killed off, describing it as an “utter disaster”.

According to writer Dana Baratta, James Van Der Beek and Joshua Jackson weren’t getting along while filming Season 3, so the writers avoided putting them in scenes together – which helped fuel the Pacey vs Dawson storyline.

Dawson infamous ugly cry wasn’t originally in the script for the Season 3 finale. It was all James Van Der Beek’s own creative, spontaneous genius.

Michelle Williams felt insecure about how little time she got on-screen compared to the main love triangle of Pacey, Dawson, and Joey, but James Van Der Beek told her it was a good thing because she’d be able to distance herself from the show more easily in future.

James Van Der Beek once ran intoSteven Spielberg at a basketball game, and Spielberg told him, “I like the posters on your wall”.

Joshua Jackson would frequently moon people on set to make them laugh and help them relax.  

James Van Der Beek bought champagne for the whole crew when Dawson finally lost his virginity.

Each year of filming, Joshua Jackson would take the cast and crew to see a hockey game. One year, he was arrested after getting in a fight with a security guard.

Busy Philipps, who played Audrey, was originally meant to do a guest spot on the show but the showrunner at the time, Tom Kapinos, liked her so much he decided to wait to use her as a recurring character when the gang went to college.

Originally, the series finale was very different: Dawson and Pacey reconcile their friendship but Joey leaves them both behind and heads to Paris, while a very much alive Jen moves back to New York. The storyline was instead used in Episode 22 in the final season.

The studio ended up asking Kevin Williamson to return to write the finale, and he agreed when they suggested it be set five years later, giving him space to tell new stories with the characters.

He decided to kill someone off because he thought grieving the death of one of their best friends was the only coming-of-age story the show hadn’t told yet. He chose Jen because she’d always felt like an “outsider”.

Michelle Williams questioned the decision to kill off Jen, saying “Well, what if we do a reunion show? What if we do a movie or something?”, to which Williamson replied, “Well, then you’ll be a ghost.”

Joey was originally going to pick Dawson over Pacey in the finale, but after writing it, Kevin Williamson admits something felt off, and he realized that while Joey and Dawson were soulmates, their love was platonic, and Pacey was Joey’s true romantic match.

Andie actually returned in the series finale, but her scenes were cut from the show due to time constraints.

Kevin Williamson says he doesn’t think a reunion or revival with the original cast would work, but he’s open to someone else taking on the next generation and telling a new story.