Pacey's Article!!:0)
This article is about Joshua Jackson (Pacey)! It came from the Canadian Magazine called "Quinte!"
JACKSON READY FOR A LONG TRIP ON "DAWSON'S CREEK"
By David Migicovsky
"Dawson's Creek" has certainly made waves since its stateside debut on the WB Network. Now a
Canadian network is hoping to duplicate WB's good fortune. The series makes its debut on Global
with a special airing on Sunday, April 12, before settling into its regular Monday time slot on April
13.
The hourlong drama centers on the lives of four teen-agers starting high school in the fictional
Boston suburb of Capeside. Young Dawson (James Van der Beek) hopes to be the next Steven
Spielberg. In the opener, he is informed by his best friend, Joey (Katie Holmes), that they can no
longer hold sleepovers because of their new physical maturity. Actually, Joey is developing a crush
on Dawson, which becomes apparent when he falls for the new girl in town, Jennifer (Michelle
Williams). Rounding out the quartet is Dawson's friend Pacey (Joshua Jackson), who is not
interested in any of the other three. He's flirting with his new English teacher (Leann Hunley).
Jackson has his own humourous take on the makeup of the show. "We've got Dawson; he's our
Captain America, our hero," he says. "Then you've got Jen, who's the bombshell; unforunately for
her, everybody has to root against her, because everybody's supposed to root for Joey. And then
you got me... I rake the muck. I hop in, do something silly, and I leave. That's my job. Three days a
week - it's great. I'm like the comic relief of the show. As long as I keep on getting the girl,
everything's OK. That's in my contract; I'll do any goofy thing you want me to do, but I got to get
the girl."
One thing Jackson would like to make abundantly clear is that he does not share Pacey's
proclivities. Except for his third-grade French teacher, Jackson says his own teachers were a rather
uninspiring group. He was expelled from two Vancouver-area high schools and doesn't have many
happy memories of his education.
"I wish my English teacher looked like this woman on TV," Jackson admits. "She's gorgeous. Only
on television, unfortunately. That's the most fantastic part of the entire show - now that I'm sleeping
with my English teacher, but that she'd look like that. Maybe when I go to university."
Jackson has interrupted his education for "Dawson's Creek," but he hopes to continue it when the
series ends. Right now, he's enjoying his success, which seems to be filled with equal popularity and
notoriety. "Controversy is what gets people talking, but little girls are going to fall in love with
James... it's like me when I was in 'Mighty Ducks'." The thing is, they won't fall in lust with James; he
won't be the heartthrob. He'll be the nice guy they want to take home to Mom. 'Cause that's what
James is. Even when you meet him, he's the nicest man I've ever met in my entire life."
After Pacey's educational adventures come to their inevitable end in a few weeks, the focus for the
remainder of the first season will be the Dawson-Joey-Jen triangle, letting Pacey fade into the
background a bit. "I basically become Jiminy Cricket for the second half of the season," Jackson
says. "I'm the one telling Dawson, 'Listen man, do what you've gotta do.' That's how we spend the
second half of the season, with me as the good boy. Well not really - as good as I can be. That's the
toughest acting job I've ever had, being the good kid."
One aspect of the show that has been controversial in the States is the amount of time the
characters spend talking about sex.
"We're much less Puritan up here than they are across the border," Jackson contends. "The outrage
comes from this vocal minority in the States, so their importance gets blown out of proportion and
people kind of kowtow to this kind of amorphous 'moral majority' that nobody can really pin down.
They're really not a huge amount of people, but they're wealthy and powerful and loud, so you have
to toe the party line. Subjectively speaking, different people are going to react differently to the
show, and some people are going to find the amount that we speak of sex to be too much, and now
going to watch the show. And some people, like yourself and myself are going to go, 'I don't get it. It
really doesn't bother me that much.' And in defense of the show, I would like to say that when I was
15... I talked about sex a lot.
"There's no need to censor that," Jackson continues, "because people will censor themselves. If
they don't like the show - if they found that to be terribly offensive - they just turn off the TV. And if
enough people turn off the TV, the show's going to get canceled."
But "Dawson's Creek" doesn't need to worry about that anytime soon. The WB recently
announced the series has been renewed for next season.
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