Is Katie Holmes who she says she is?
Gigi Guerra lets you be the judge.
(from JANE magazine, October 2000)

"I'm so boring," says Katie, sighing and placing her head in her hands. It's midnight and we're at an empty restaurant in downtown Wilmington, N.C. We're drinking caffeinated beverages and eating banana-nut sundaes from martini glasses. It's pouring outside. Katie has tried to convince me that she's dull eight different times in the past 12 hours. "Would I be sitting here interviewing you for an article if I thought you were boring?" I ask. Katie shifts her eyes back and forth and begins to look uncomfortable. Minutes seem to pass in silence. A lone waiter wipes down the last few tables for the night. I realize I have to pee. "Oh, I don't know," she finally answers. "I guess you're right."

The first time I saw non-boring Katie was earlier in the day. I found her sitting on a weathered dock in a skirt and sexy backless top, shucking corn. She was shooting a scene for the premiere fall episode of "Dawson's Creek." After removing the corn husks, Katie--who plays Joey--placed the cobs in a large pot, and then kissed her current love interest Pacey (actor Joshua Jackson). I could go into greater detail about the rest of this episode, but I won't ruin it for you. However, for a small sum, you can find out everything at the Web site I just set up: www.i'mscrewingwithyou.com. After finishing the shot, Katie walked over to me. Her feet were covered in mud from the rain. She looked way taller and even prettier in person--amazingly clear skin, thick hair, genuine smile. I know that sounds like such an annoying suck-up-y cliche, but it's true, so get over it. Katie told me that during one of the many takes, Josh bit her lip as a joke. "So I bit him back," she said, grinning. See, this could get interesting.

Twenty-one-year-old Katie was born the fifth of five kids in Toledo, Ohio. She was raised Catholic. As a teen, she attended a local modeling school. When she was 16, she visited New York City for a big modeling convention and picked up an agent for acting instead. Lawyer dad and homemaker mom were supportive of Katie's Hollywood aspirations, even as she deferred acceptance to Columbia twice (though she took a photography class there last summer). Katie's mom played the role of Dawson when they taped her audition video in their Ohio basement to send to the WB. And Katie's dad helped her audition for Scream. "I just had to scream [at him]," she explains. "It wasn't anything big." But she didn't get the part in Scream--nor did she get picked for other things she tried out for, like "As the World Turns," "Party of Five," The Beach and Brokedown Palace.

But in 1996 Katie got a role in the brilliantly disturbing film The Ice Storm. She played a rich teen who gets slipped some Valium by Tobey Maguire's character and ends up passed out facedown in his clothed lap. "It was a surreal experience," she says. "I didn't want anyone to fire me, so I was like, 'How do you want me to do it?'" Katie's parents were okay with the scene, but not exactly enthused. She says: "My dad was like 'Can't you do Disney? They make great movies, honey.'" Then "Dawson's," at age 17, and other films followed pretty quickly, like Disturbing Behavior, Go and Teaching Mrs. Tingle. This fall, you'll find Katie back alongside Tobey in the re-released Wonder Boys (the director wasn't happy with the original version and felt a new one would work as a fall release). Come spring, Katie will grace multiplexes in The Gift as a less-than-chaste Savannah society girl. "Somebody strangles me, throws me in a pond and then drags me through it," Katie explains. "I got to wear special-effects makeup and white contacts. It was Stigmata-like, I guess." Katie also got to kiss costars Greg Kinnear (coincidentally on page 59) and Keanu Reeves (unfortunately not on any page this issue). "My character doesn't have qualms about hooking up with anyone," she says, "This is the first time I wasn't playing somebody who was naive or kind of apologetic for herself ... it was awkward a little, but I had a great time doing it. It was a big stretch and kind of scary, but I like to do things that scare me." Okay, but what was it like kissing Keanu? "Well, um, he was ... I don't know, really nice to work with." One would imagine.

Since the real Katie is coming across a little naive, I decide to ask her some been-around-the-block questions. You know, to mix it up a bit.

Me: What's the worst thing you've been caught doing?
Katie: [Long pause] Kissing. Like by my parents. It's so horrible. It's so embarrassing. I'm blushing.
Ever seen a porno?
Yes. We had to watch one [in a scene for] "Dawson's Creek." It was pretty funny. But I did see Boogie Nights.
Have you ever shoplifted anything?
No, but I [was with a friend] who stole a jelly bean from ... I can't say it because you'll print it. [Note: Katie later admits to never returning two rental movies.]
What's the most publicly embarrassing thing you've ever done?
I think tripping a lot, like when I'm at a crosswalk and my ankle gives out or something. It's like, "Good one, Kate. You can dress her up but you can't take her out."
You have a boyfriend?
Mmm-hmm. We've been going out for almost a year. It's really exciting. I can't talk about this.
So you don't like to talk about your boyfriend?
It's such a cliche, goddamn it. Don't put goddamn it in there. Rule number one--do not say the Lord your God's name in vain. [Note to reader: Sources say Katie's boyfriend is actor Chris Klein from the film Election. They were set up by friends. One night Chris waited on the "Dawson's" set until three in the morning for her to finish a scene. He's a meat-eater who gets poultry-eater Katie to chow steak every now and then. Note to Katie: That wasn't so bad, was it?]
What sins do you have anyway?
Sometimes I say shit.

"Katie is very clean-cut," says a congested-sounding Josh Jackson, Katie's former boyfriend in real life. He's on medication for a throat infection. "The only thing that's changed over the years is that maybe she's been to a bar. The wild Katie is still something any parent can be proud of." Josh and Katie dated for about eight months right when "Dawson's" started in '98. "Before the show was even on the air, she asked me out," he says. "It was the first time I was ever tracked down by a beautiful woman. Life was good." They ended up splitting because, as Josh says, their lives were "heading in opposite directions." But Josh is still a big booster for Katie: "in the beginning it was breathtaking to watch. She was new at acting and completely unself-conscious. I'm still continually in awe of her." Tobey Maguire feels the same way. At least according to the quote he told his publicist to relay to me: "Katie is smart and down to earth. She likes to have fun on the set, but still takes her work seriously."

Later that evening, Katie meets me at a downtown Wilmington watering hole. She's wearing a wrap sweater, jean skirt and flip-flops. She's also wearing glasses Katie tells me that someone accidentally hit her in the left eye in seventh grade and it messed up her vision. "If I get tired sometimes I see double out of it," she explains as we walk into the wood-paneled bar. Inside, a bunch of foxy female bartenders in tight leather pants and Harley-Davidson T-shirts dance around, then slam shots down the throats of regulars. One blond even pours some 151 rum into her own mouth and sets it on fire like a blowtorch.

Oh, wait ... wrong bar. This place is very non-Coyote Ugly. A few mellow locals mill around nursing their longnecks. A Cure song plays softly in the background. Katie sits and orders a Sierra Nevada and a glass of ice water. "I was in Wilmington for my 21st birthday last December," she tells me, taking a sip of her water. "A lot of people on set turned 21 right around the same time as me, so they had a surprise party." Katie's sister sent her a bottle of Goldschlager to celebrate. "I haven't opened it yet," she says, taking another water sip. "It's still sitting in the kitchen." I'm suspicious of the stuff, too. But you're not here to read about my opinion of booze, are you? At parties, Katie tells me that instead of participating in drinking games, she likes to discuss philosophy. Then she takes a big gulp of water.

A bit later, we relocate to a fancy restaurant around the corner. Josh and James Van Der Beek (the Dawson in "Dawson's Creek") used to live upstairs. Katie shacked up around the block. Everyone used to meet here for dinner. Now Katie calls a townhouse on the other side of Wilmington home. She bought it sight unseen while working on Mrs. Tingle. It seemed wasteful to rent since she spends 10 months in town filming. "My mom made the curtains," she says. "There are green velvet couches, aged-wood nightstands, an old chest-nothing really matches." Katie also says the closets in the three bedrooms are packed with her clothes. As for her neighborhood, it caters to both ends of the suburban spectrum: "It's mostly college kids and people over 65. One night you'll be driving home next to the retirement bus and the next there's a frat party two houses down." Recently, two college guys banged on Katie's door looking for someone to party with. I would've slammed the door in their faces, but Katie sweetly told them that she was "kind of busy."

Not all of Katie's visitors have been completely random, though. Earlier this spring, a scary guy was hanging around Katie's house. He'd driven across North Carolina to sit in her bushes in the dark. A cop in the hood happened to cruise by, spotted him, and knocked on Katie's door at two in the morning to alert her. "I was watching a movie to pick up an accent for an audition," she says, "and I guess he was sitting there." Katie says he was ultimately arrested. "It happened at a time when I was busy and exhausted," she explains, "and luckily I was so focused on other things that I didn't have the time to really freak out about it. It was scary, but I'm a person who lives in denial. Thank God nothing happened." By the way, she didn't get the part in the movie. But she won't blame it on the incident. "That's kind of like a dog-ate-my-homework [excuse]," she says, taking the heaviness off the situation. I can't believe how forgiving she seems.

At 8 a.m. the next day, I'm sitting across from Katie at a local IHOP. We'd planned to go to the beach, but the still-rainy weather put the kibosh on that. As we sit in a seafoam-colored vinyl booth under fake geraniums eating pancakes, I think about how relaxing it's been hanging out with Katie: She's mellow, a good listener and doesn't behave at all like a self-absorbed Hollywood actor. I haven't once seen her pick up a cell phone. On the set of "Dawson's," she insisted that I sit in her director's chair in a tent while she stood out in the rain. At every meal, she offered--quite insistently--to pay (I kept telling her that I could expense it). She didn't name-drop once, and prefers spending time with her Ohio friends over chilling with other celebs. She blushes when asked probing questions, and apologizes if she doesn't want to answer. And if you're looking for a screaming fit, you won't find it here.

All of this behavior is refreshing coming from someone who could easily get away with acting like a total bitch. But Katie doesn't catch your interest with the typical egocentric-blabbermouth-actor routine. Instead she draws you in slowly by revealing a few personal things and then leaves you guessing. If you ask me, that's anything but boring. "Mystery," says Katie, staring intently at me over her plate. "That's what keeps them coming."

OCTOBER 2000 JANE pp 144-147