An Article From Big Hit Magazine
by: Lauren Cowen

In real life, Katie Holmes doesn't crawl through Dawson's window when she's got a problem. Instead, she picks up the phone and calls her best bud Meghann Birie from her home town of Toledo, Ohio.

Meghann Birie is a student at Ohio State University. Like millions of other fans in the US, she watches Dawson's Creek every Wednesday night. Some nights, after the show is over, the phone will ring and it'll be Katie!

"She'll call and my room-mates will put their hands over the phone and say, 'It's Katie Holmes!'" giggles Meghann.

So, why would one of the biggest stars in the whole world be calling a student's dorm room?

Well, long before Katie became Joey, star of Dawson's Creek, and cover girl for big hit, she was just a kid who loved her Barbie dolls. Her partner in crime was her closest pal, Meghann. They spent the weekends of their childhood travelling between their respective Barbie worlds - one in the basement of Katie's place, the other a bike ride away at Meghann's house.

Today, they are hard-pressed to recall any moment when they haven't consulted each other: over which shoes to buy, how to get through the first day of an all-girl catholic high school (they made Katie's mum drive around the block several times so they wouldn't get there too early!), or most notably, what to do when it became clear that Katie was headed for stardom instead of college as they had always planned.

But this was nothing compared to the test their friendship endured when they were 11. That's when Meaghann stunned Katie by putting away her Barbie dolls for good.

"How could you?" Katie remembers wailing. "How could you change?" The worst was yet to come. She was about to have a birthday party in her basement - her first boy-girl party. She and Meaghann planned everything, especially games - passing oranges under the chin, passing Lifesavers via toothpicks - games they had imagined might lead to a first kiss.

Meaghann checked out the pre-party setting and saw, to her horror, Barbie dolls everywhere.

"Katie, the time has come," she said firmly. "The Barbie dolls have to go."

Recalling this while eating lunch near the set of Dawson's Creek, Meaghann pauses mid-fork and sighs. "It was hard. She didn't take it well."

"But we survived," Katie points out.

Which is perhaps why, even though Meaghann is at university and Katie is in Wilmington, where the show is filmed, they are still in close contact. Not to mention Meaghann watching her best friend suddenly swept from the lead role in a school play to the lead story in magazines. Meaghann and Katie have never doubted that their friendship would last forever (though special thanks is owed to the inventor of the mobile phone!).

Even when Katie's shopping for footwear, she consults her pal for advice. She pulls out her phone and dials Meaghann, who might be on her way to class. "I'm in Nine West," she says, "and I'm looking at the boots, you know the ones ... not the ones that go up to your calf, but the flat ones ..."

Or consider Meghann, sitting in class at Ohio State University. Sneakily, she dials Katie, who might be on the set of Dawson's Creek. "Oh my God," she whispers. "There's this really hot guy in front of me. Should I talk to him? I don't know, I'm a little intimidated ..."

Or imagine, as the two of them do, when some guy proposes marriage.

Katie laughs and impersonates what will happen - she looks to the imaginary boyfriend across the table and says, "Hold that thought!" She puts her hand to her ear and pretends to dial Meaghann. "So. Should I marry him?"

"We've always been like sisters," Katie continues, turning to Meaghann. "Ever since kindergarten, when I saw you in those overalls."

"And then in high school, oh my God, remember? We were such nerdy freshmen."

"Totally nerdy," Katie agrees.

"Remember that first day?" Meaghann says. "I rolled up my skirt, thinking it looked better ..."

"And remember we wore lots of ribbons? So dorky!"

"Plaid ribbons!" recalls Meaghann in horror.

They giggle and start bringing up all their old memories: They didn't make the cheerleading squad because they talked too much. Meaghann coaxed Katie into taking dance lessons with her.Their favourite TV shows were Saved by the Bell and Full House. They went on secret outings to watch movies their parents considered unsuitable, such as Weekend at Bernie's and Girls Just Wanna Have Fun.

For fun, they invented and taped make-believe newscasts. Meaghann was always the weather girl. Katie, for some reason, was a news anchor woman named "Janet Jackson".

"She was really dramatic in singing and making up commercials, stuff like that," recalls Meaghann.

In a bid to teach Katie some manners, her mother enrolled her in a Toledo modeling school. She took acting classes and went on the school's trip to New York for the International Modeling and Talent Association convention. It was there, that Katie, 16, performed a monologue from To Kill a Mockingbird, a performance that sent 30 agents scrambling to get her phone number.

But she was only a junior in high school, and had already been accepted to Columbia University, where she planned to major in pre-Med. Heading to Hollywood for screen-tests was not what her father had in mind.

Eventually, Katie's pleas were heard. Her first audition was for the movie The Ice Storm. James Schamus, the film's co-producer and screenwriter, told Rolling Stone magazine that they were simply looking for someone to read a few lines against an actor and snatched Katie from the hallway. "She read for a few minutes, and after she left, I turned to the director and said, 'This is it. This is a movie star.'" She got the part, but was away from home for six weeks,

"I kept calling her all the time," Katie says of Meaghann. "It was really hard. We had never been apart for that long."

Soon after she returned, Katie auditioned for Dawson's Creek via a videotape she recorded in her mum's sewing room, with her mum reading Dawson's lines. Once the show's producers saw the tape, they asked to meet her immediately. Since she was busy performing in her high school play, Damn Yankees, and didn't want to let her friends down, the producers of Dawson's agreed to reschedule her audition. They loved her (of course!) and Katie won the part of Joey.

So while Meaghann began her freshman year at Ohio State, Katie moved to Wilmington, North Carolina. Via mobile phone conversations, Meaghann hears behind-the-scenes stories and she has also visited Katie on the set.

It's been a big change for Katie ... but also for Meaghann.

"I get so many questions!" says Meaghann about watching Dawson's with her room-mates. She admits that her new friends also get worried when they answer Katie's calls. "They worry that they sound too starstruck. But when they hear me talk to her, they say, 'Well, she must be so easy to talk to. She must be just like you.'"