Over two decades after Dawson’s Creek defined late-’90s teen television, cast member Kerr Smith is pulling back the curtain on the real-life romantic tension that quietly simmered behind the cameras in Wilmington, North Carolina. In his newly released memoir, I Don’t Want to Wait: My Life on Dawson’s Creek, published Tuesday, November 10, Smith details how an off-screen love triangle involving James Van Der Beek, Joshua Jackson, and Katie Holmes left the show’s two male leads barely speaking during the series’ early seasons.
In an excerpt shared by Entertainment Weekly, Smith—who joined the WB drama in Season 2 as Jack McPhee—writes candidly about the dynamic he walked into on set:
“The worst-kept secret at Dawson’s Creek was season one’s rather meta ‘love triangle’ between James, Josh, and a certain Joey Potter look-alike,” Smith wrote. “And hey, Katie and the guys were all in and around their twenties, and undeniably attractive.”
“Was that scandalous? Hardly. Unpredictable? Not even close. But… while nobody was talking openly about the romantic entanglements that had quietly complicated season one, those simmering tensions had a way of making the on-set air feel slightly charged, even on the most ordinary days, into season two and beyond,” he continued.
According to Smith, while Van Der Beek and Jackson maintained strict professionalism when cameras rolled, their off-screen camaraderie was virtually nonexistent:
“I can’t recall a single conversation between them,” Smith noted. “They didn’t interact off set. It wasn’t dramatic, and it didn’t get in the way of anything that mattered. It was simply…a thing that existed.”
The icy dynamic eventually thawed thanks to co-star Mary-Margaret Humes, who played Dawson’s mother, Gail Leery.Reflecting on the tension decades later, Humes told Smith:
“‘Everyone was aware of it,’ she told me twenty-five years after the fact. ‘It was a bit uncomfortable to be around… and also sad to watch.’”
When Jackson invited the cast to a 2000 screening of his thriller The Skulls, Van Der Beek initially planned to skip it—until Humes intervened, insisting she would pick him up and ordering him to “be ready” when she arrived. “Period.” Her maternal nudge worked wonders once they arrived at the theater:
“Josh made his way over, hugged her, and thanked James for coming,” Smith recalled in the book. “For the first time in ages, their eyes met, even when the cameras were off. It felt like, she says, ‘the beginning of the healing process for them.’”
Praising Humes to EW for constantly documenting their years together with candid photos and annual behind-the-scenes videos, Smith summed up her vital role on set:
“She’s the mama bear of Dawson’s Creek.”
