Getting The Suds Out Of It. If Dawson's Creek seemed more like Melrose Place last season (what with Dawson going on a drinking jag, his dad going after a younger woman,Pacey's girlfriend, Andie, going wacko, and the teens' hangout going up in flames), fear not. As the show heads into its second full season, the plan is to go back to its less melodramatic roots.
"It will definitely return to a first season sensibility," promises WB executive VP Jordan Levin. "Dawson will have something to say instead of the cast reacting to bigger-then-life plots."
Gone is creator Kevin Williamson, who, besides his movie work (Scream), has created ABC's new drama Wasteland. Although it's unusual for a creator to leave a show so early in its run, Williamson's hectic life was taking its toll. "I was starting to crash and burn," he says. "It's best I'm not part of it this year." He too feels the show was getting "too soapy," something he says he never intended.
As for life without Dawson, he expects some withdrawal. "It'll be hard," he admits. "But I'm never too far away." Paul Stupin remains as exec producer, with Alex Gansa (Maximum Bob) and Tammy Ader (Party of Five) helping fill the void left by Williamson.
Of course, while trying to stay the keeping-it-real course, they'll have to find a way to write in teenybopper Britney Spears, who's set to splash into the Creek this season. Maybe aspiring director Dawson will start shooting music videos.
Kevin Williamson isn't just the hottest writer in Hollywood, he's the busiest. In fact, Dawson's Creek is just one of many projects
from the 32-year-old wunderkind and mastermind behind Scream, Scream 2 and I Know What You Did Last Summer.
Williamson also has Scream 3 in the works...and Wasteland, a series about a post-college group of friends. And then there's Killing Mrs. Tingle (his film-directing debut) and a sci-fi movie with Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi) due next Christmas. He might even lend a hand on Halloween 7. (At this point he says he's only contributed a few ideas.)
Of course, Williamson is being amply compensated: He recently signed a reported $30 million deal with Miramax. In the face of all this fame and pressure, though, this small-town guy from North Carolina retains his small-town charm. In fact, the first thing Williamson bought after signing with Miramax was a new Dodge Ram pickup for his dad.
How did Dawson's Creek come about? I had no more scary stories to tell, so I reached into my childhood and came up with--me. It's this young kid in a small town who wants to be a filmmaker. He loves Spielberg, has a crush on the girl next door and his best friend of 15 years is secretly longing for him. I pitched it 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. I sort of threw everything in there.
How much of it is based on your teenage years? I'm a piece of every character. Certainly, I was that young kid growing up in a small coastal town who wanted to be a filmmaker. I had a fascination with Spielberg--I still do. I had that best friend, Joey--who's a girl named Fanny. We were best friends all the way through high school. I just talked to her recently for the first time in about 10 years. She had no idea I'd written Scream. She was like, "You know there's a writer out there with your name, Kevin. He wrote Scream." She knew me as an actor.
You've said you try to let your characters have the perfect comebacks that people aren't usually able to come up with in real life. When I was watching TV as a kid, I always loved it when people spoke smarter than me. I'd say, I wish I could have that comeback! I do think we balance it. There are plenty of times when they don't know what to say, and they're sitting there with egg on their face.
Since you've been writing these snappy comebacks, are you better at them yourself? I'm not as quick as I'd like to be. Sometimes I get nervous and brain cells will just drip out of my ear.
You've referred to yourself as today's hot flavor. Is that really the case? What goes up must come down. There will be a backlash eventually if it goes on. All of the scripts I'm developing now are about adults. I love the teenage thing, but I have so many stories I want to tell.
You have quite a group of young actors on Dawson's. They're pretty remarkable, and they're so unaffected--so far. That's the big joke: Which one of them is going to turn into the prima donna. We have all our cards on Dawson, just because it's his creek. [Laughs.]
Any hints for Scream 3? It's all in my head. It will round off the story. It continues with Gail and Sidney--but more Gail. The second film was the transition. Gail Weathers had more, and the third will be even more. It takes place, like, a year later. I don't want to give away too much. They're making the sequel to Stab. Actually it's a prequel, The Cottonweary Story. [Laughs.] I'm joking about some of that. Don't quote me on it. I do change things. I changed the ending of Scream 2. What was it originally? I'm not gonna say. Some of it might find its way into Scream 3. I'll write it in June, July, August, September. We'll have to wait on the actors' availability because of TV, so we probably won't be able to shoot it until March or April. It won't be out until the following Christmas.
You seem to have an affinity for Sarah Michelle Gellar. I love her. We want to put her into Dawson's Creek. A crossover episode--Buffy comes to Dawson's Creek! Actually, we're going to have her play an actress. I haven't written it, but I think it would be good to have a movie crew come to town to film on location. Dawson's hired as a PA, and he has a little affair with the lead. And then I'd kill her. She said she'll only do it if she gets to die, because she's died in every single one of my projects. I'm trying to figure out how to kill her. Maybe a drunken-driving accident, and it can be the "very special episode" of Dawson's Creek, which I rebel against--but, hey, why not? We've had 90210 moments. I was a big fan of 90210: the Brenda years. When she left, I left.
Are people surprised when they meet you that a nice young guy wrote Scream? I don't really get it. My mom gets it. She'll have people come up to her at church and say, "What happened? Where does he get those ideas from?" But it's just a story. I read a lot of mysteries when I was a little kid. I loved Halloween--there's Scream. I loved James at 15--there's Dawson's Creek. I loved Three Days of the Condor--I've got an action thriller I'm working on. Something I love sticks with me and influences my work. I learned how to write dialogue by watching Quentin Tarantino's movies. When I met him, he said, "Man, I love the rhythm of your dialogue!" I said, "I learned from you. I'm still trying to learn."
Up the Creek with Virgins, Vixens and Teenage Lust It's not the sort of stuff you'd expect with such clean-scrubbed teenage characters.
There's the cherubic-faced Dawson, confessing it's Katie Couric who makes him "walk the dog." There's smoldering Jennifer, revealing the intimate details of the
big-city trouble that landed her in small-town Capeside. And there's lunky Pacey, whose schoolboy lust for his sultry English teacher goes from vivid fantasy to awkward reality overnight.
It's network TV, all right. But it's network TV, Kevin Williamson style. In making the transition from big screen to small, the Scream writer has swapped slashers for sex and coeds for almost certain controversy. "I think we're trying to be honest and tasteful," says exec producer Paul Stupin, who helped develop Beverly Hills, 90210 and recruited Williamson after he saw Scream.
Williamson responded with an often too cute show about virginal young teens in a sleepy Nantucket-esque town that manages to be in-your-face topical and frank. And, depending on how you perceive the use of the word penis, a graphic student-teacher romance, infidelity, a sprinkling of homosexuality and a dash of interracial love, it can even be shocking.
Dawson, of course, is the centerpiece. An aspiring, 15-year-old filmmaker with a Spielberg fixation--not to mention a Jaws wall and 1941 closet--he's coming into his own and entering the 10th grade. His pal Joey (Katie Holmes) is a tomboy who's known Dawson forever. Best bud Pacey (Joshua Jackson) is equal parts clown and confidant. When into his life lands gal-pal Jennifer, fresh from the big city, ostensibly to help out her ailing grandfather and Bible-spouting grandmother.
Dawson's can be uneven. Some scenes test the believability meter, the acting can be a notch above daytime soap and the kids are not always all right with the overly eloquent dialogue. "The way these kids speak is not the way every teenager speaks, but I think it's the way every teenager feels," says Van Der Beek.
Counter that with cutting-edge topics, Williamson's inside jokes (watch carefully for posters of I Know What You Did Last Summer) and hip soundtrack (artists like Sheryl Crow and No Doubt), and you've got something teens will tune in to.
By the way, how does Van Der Beek feel about his penis size being discussed in every episode? "Not every single episode! And it's Dawson they're talking about. Besides," he adds with a shrug, "they're rather complimentary."
James Van Der Beek His character: Dawson Leery, an overly analytical 15-year-old wannabe filmmaker with a thing for Spielberg. Though just a sophomore--and a virgin--he's often mature beyond his years. Lives a perfect life--as long as you don't count the shocking flaws in his parents' idyllic marriage and his own teen traumas and growing pains.
His background: A relative newcomer, Van Der Beek's a 20-year-old from Chesire, Connecticut, who hasn't done much beyond a small part in the film Angus.
His words: "Dawson can process his emotions and verbalize them in a way that not everybody can," says the actor. "But anybody who's ever gone through adolescence can relate to him."
Katie Holmes Her character: Joey Potter, a smart-mouthed girl from the wrong side of the tracks, is Dawson's oldest childhood chum. Her dad's in prison, her mom died of cancer, she lives with her older sister, who happens to be pregnant by her black boyfriend. (That carries mucho shock value in a small town like Capeside.) Oh yeah, she's also secretly in love with Dawson.
Her background: It's a quick trip from Holmes' hometown of Toledo to Dawson's Creek. The 18-year-old's only previous professional gig came last year in Ang Lee's acclaimed film The Ice Storm.
Her words: "Joey's full of emotions," says Holmes. "I'm like her in that we both say what we feel, but Joey goes a little further. I wouldn't say a lot of the things she says."
Michelle Williams
Her character: Jennifer Lindley, the sexy new kid in town, has captured Dawson Leery's eye and heart. But nothing is simple on this show. Though she professes chastity to budding boyfriend Dawson, she comes with a sordid New York City past--and her folks have shipped her off to her Bible-spouting grandmother. Her background: A 17-year-old from the wilds of Kalispell, Montana, Williams appeared last year in A Thousand Acres.
Her words: "Jennifer's a bit of an old soul in that she's grown up so fast and experienced so many things at such an early age," Williams says. "In a sense it's jaded her, but really she's come to Capeside to regain her innocence."
Joshua Jackson
His character: Pacey Witter, Dawson's sarcastic, lust-filled best friend and video-store coworker, is starting to get a handle on the whole teen thing. Then his sultry English teacher comes along with a little too much private tutoring...
His background: A 19-year-old from Vancouver, Jackson's already an old hand in Hollywood with The Mighty Ducks, D2: The Mighty Ducks and Mighty Ducks 3 to his credit.
His words: "Pacey's very abrasive on the surface, but I like to think in the end that he's redeemable," says Jackson. "I think he clings so hard to Dawson because he's the only person Pacey can really hang out with and be who he wants to be."
Flash back to May: Shortly after they all first met, Dawson's Creek stars Katie Holmes and Michelle Williams pulled a prank on fellow actors James Van Der Beek and Joshua Jackson.
At the Howard Johnson's in Wilmington, North Carolina, where the hormone-heavy drama is filmed, they locked their male costars out of their room, leaving them standing in the hall, clad only in their boxers. "We just terrorized them," Williams says. "They didn't want to go into the lobby because they were only in their underwear."
Fast-forward a few months: The cast routinely engages in some major discourse. Politics. Religion. Welfare reform. "Nasty arguments," Williams calls them. "But we all can hold our own."
The foursome's bounce between youthful kidding and adult conversation mirrors the dynamics on Dawson's Creek (WB, Tuesdays, 9 P.M./ET), the show in which kids talk like adults, act like adults, even sleep with adults. Which may be why the Matchbox 20 crowd is watching?
Once again, creator Kevin Williamson has captured the self-aware, media-savvy character of this age group, who in the last year flocked to cineplexes everywhere to his trio of hits: "Scream," "I Know What You Did Last Summer" and "Scream 2."
With that karma, Dawson's Creek seems poised to inherit the 90210/Melrose Place/Party of Five-mantle as the show of the moment, the can't-miss series destined to launch thousands of CD soundtrack sales, teen-magazine covers and frenzied shopping-mall appearances.
In its first four weeks the drama hovered around a 5.2 rating, reaching more than 5 million homes. Paltry by major network standards but impressive for the WB, placing the show ahead of the hot Buffy the Vampire Slayer, its lead-in on the network's new Tuesday-night schedule. More impressive: According to the Nielsens, the show is No. 1 among girls 12 to 17 and No. 4 among teens overall. "So far, so good," says Garth Ancier, the WB's president of entertainment.
No one can say all this has happened by chance. Producers cast four well-clothed, well-groomed actors. There's Van Der Beek, 20, as aspiring 15-year-old filmmaker Dawson Leery, the object of a triangle involving his childhood pal Joey Potter (Holmes, 19) and the girl-next-door-with-a-past, Jennifer Lindley (Williams, 17). Rounding out the foursome is Dawson's best friend and fellow video-store clerk Pacey Witter (Jackson, 19), unable to score with women his own age but succeeding with his English teacher (Leann Hunley), more than 20 years his senior.
Backed by a $3 million marketing push, Dawson's Creek was generating word of mouth long before its January debut. A promotional tape passed around to the press last summer created a great deal of buzz for its risque content: namely, the fact that Dawson and Joey sleep in the same bed (platonically), as do Pacey and his teacher (definitely not platonically).
By December, the series was a marketing event, with posters on buses, billboards at major intersections and trailers in theaters. J. Crew announced that it would be the show's "official wardrobe provider" and featured the cast of then unknowns in its winter-spring catalog. By January, promos were running in Blockbuster video stores to the tune of Paula Cole's "I Don't Want to Wait," repeated so often that some were calling it the Dawson's Creek theme. Luckily for WB executives, Cole gave final permission to use the song for the show's title sequence only days before its debut.
Even in the relative isolation of Wilmington, a historic Southern town, the trappings of celebrity are starting to crop up. The four young actors are now recognized on the street (all but Jackson have hired personal publicists). Their pictures have popped up on the wall of a local coffee shop. And some cast members have started acquiring things, such as new cars. "I can buy nicer gifts for people," Holmes says. "But it is not like we are going overboard and shopping all the time. I think we have good heads on our shoulders." While Wilmington has become a movie and TV production center (for scenes inside the high school, the show uses an old Matlock set), it's hardly Hollywood, and almost all the crew is made up of locals. On the set back in December, Holmes was at the center of an upcoming episode in which her character enters the Miss Windjammer Pageant and sings a rendition of "On My Own," from "Les Misérables." A glittering group of extras in sequined gowns crowded a stage, all of them forcing smiles. Then the mood took an irreverent turn as both male and female crew members started trying on the winner's crown.
One almost expects this spectacle to turn into the bloody prom scene from "Carrie," what with Williamson's pedigree of slasher movies. Dawson's Creek is his chance to prove he can write more than horror and, likewise, that teens will watch more than gore. "You know, I think it is the 16-and 17-year-olds who we learn from," says the 32-year-old Williamson. "If you look at Dawson's Creek, it is the adult figures who learn from the kids, who are smarter than we give them credit for. And they are smarter than they have ever been."
Later on the set, Jackson's Pacey comes onstage to rail against the concept of beauty contests, dressed in a tuxedo and blue-and-white face paint, à la mode Gibson in "Braveheart." Perhaps no other series has featured so many references to movies and TV; in the premiere alone there were 46, including 16 about Steven Spielberg and his movies. In fact, one episode this month features a parody of Williamson's own "Scream," itself an homage to horror movies.
"This is the way I write," Williamson says. "But it is not for the sake of making a reference. I try to make sure it drives the story forward. When [the characters talk about] Spielberg, they are not just talking about Spielberg. They are talking about how he had to outgrow his Peter Pan syndrome. Which reflects on Dawson having to change his life and make a decision to face reality?"
No one argues that today's kids, weaned on MTV, Nick at Nite and 24-hour news, are media savvy, but critics have derided the show's racy dialogue. Take what Pacey told his teacher the first time she spurned his advances: "You know, lady, I'm the best sex you've never had." Admits Ancier:"There's no 15-year-old in America who would say that. But that's part of the fun of the show." "Yeah," adds Williamson, "I think it is not so much how teenagers are but how teenagers would like to be seen, as opposed to being talked down to."
Still, at a press conference in Pasadena, California, last summer, critics hounded the cast about the show's matter-of-fact talk about sex, right down to the size of private parts. Jackson says he actually got scolded by WB executives for his quip to the group: "Don't worry, it's not like we're all having group orgies."
To be sure, the WB has shown some restraint. Williamson tried to get the word masturbate into the pilot; it was rejected. Finally, he says, "We came up with walk the dog. Now we use it all the time. Everyone knows what it means." Ironically, Ancier says that when the show debuted, the WB got few complaints about language. The 100 or so viewer calls were directed toward temporary technical problems with closed-captioning.
"People were going on about all the sex in the show," Van Der Beek says. "What do you mean? How many people had sex in the pilot? But do 15-year-olds talk about sex? I mean, are they thinking about it? Yeah. We are not giving these kids any ideas, but what we do is talk about these issues. I think we do it really responsibly."
But enough of this serious stuff. Back on the set, the pranks haven't ended; they've just gotten more complex. Williams has asked the show's effects supervisor how to attach a metal bar under Jackson's new Chevy truck so it will continually emit a mysterious clicking noise. She says, grinning devilishly, "It'll drive him crazy."
A personal profile of Katie; one was written for each actor and actress. To view the rest of it, check out TV Guide.
Van Der Beek and Jackson consider Holmes an easy target: Dawson's Creek is the 19-year-old's first time on her own. "They always say things to get a rise out of me," she says. "Very outlandish things. And they succeed." And what is it they do? "You know, they moon me." She can't be too shocked. It's often her character, Joey, who delivers the show's racier lines. Her folks seem to understand: "They just kind of laugh," she says of her father, a lawyer, and mother, a homemaker. The youngest of five, Holmes got into acting only two years ago. While a high school junior, she landed a role in Ang Lee's "The Ice Storm." For now, she has deferred admission to Columbia University (while on hiatus, she's filming a thriller, "Disturbing Behavior"). But she's already learning a lot. "All of [my castmates] are very worldly," says the Toledo, Ohio, native, "so at first I was intimidated. But they are teaching me."
