An Article From Girlfriend Magazine

She loves her Barbies, blushes at dirty jokes and still hangs out with her friends back home. How un-Hollywood is that?

Katie Holmes, 20, best known for playing innocent tomboy-next-door Joey on Dawson's Creek, has a secret passion. To find out what it is, just get her in a club, like the one she frequented with her Teaching Mrs. Tingle costars Barry Watson and Marisa Coughlan. "Katie is the Karaoke Queen," says Watson. "I did a song with her - but I just stood there 'cause she took over the mike."

"She'd get up and do fifteen songs - she gets so fired up," says Coughlan with affection. But that's about as diva-like as Holmes ever gets. "Katie is about the cutest person you'll ever meet," continues Coughlan. "And so humble, you'd never know she was Katie Holmes. She has all this energy, and she's really, like, jumpy."

If you were as busy as Holmes has been lately, you'd probably be a little jumpy, too. In addition to her day job on DC, she's been hard at work on two movies: the dark high school comedy Teaching Mrs. Tingle (opening later this year) and Wonder Boys, co-starring Michael Douglas and hot boy Tobey Maguire. But what's even more impressive than Holmes' ability to juggle a TV and movie career is that the glare of the spotlight hasn't gone straight to her not-at-all-unattractive head.

"I'm 20 years old and having a really great time," says Holmes, whose 1997 movie debut in The Ice Storm was followed, post-DC, by bigger roles in 1998's Disturbing Behavior and last spring's Go. "We'll just see what happens." It's this unassuming quality combined with her casual beauty that makes Holmes such an appealing actress. Perhaps it is the result of growing up as the youngest of three sisters and a brother in Toledo in the US. Or from attending Notre Dame, "a very strict" all-girl Catholic high school. Being the baby of a large, close-knit family and spending your school years under the scrutiny of nuns can teach a girl humility. It can also make an irresistible target for teasing.

All the boys I work with give me a hard time," Holmes admits. "They like to embarrass me. They'll come up with these jokes - I'll just sit there and laugh. They know I don't get it."

But she's a good sport. Take, for instance, a recent interview with Holmes and Watson on the set of Tingle, a film about three students who hold their teacher-from-hell hostage.

Question: "Have you ever had a Mrs. Tingle in your life?"

Watson: "Not to the extent of the script, but, yeah, I've had a Tingle in my life. I like that - 'I've had a Tingle in my life.' I get tingly every now and then."

Holmes is turning a couple of shades of pink; Watson notices.

Watson: "Don't say penis around Katie. She gets really embarrassed."

Holmes: "No!" (In full blush)

Anyone who has suffered through sex education with nuns knows Holmes' pain. "It's embarrassing no matter who teaches it," she says. "Like most kids, I learned at the lunch table what really goes on." Not that it did any good at the time. Deprived of the company of boys during her teen years, Holmes didn't have a steady boyfriend in high school. She had a lot of catching up to do by the time she graduated in 1997 - and even then, she had a protective father to deal with.

"My dad always tried to intimidate boys 'cause he's quite tall, and he's just an intimidating person," she says. "So I always dated very nice boys and got home early. My friends still ask me when I go home now, 'Katie, do you have a curfew?'" Which really isn't a joke - it wasn't until last year that her mum and dad stopped enforcing it. "It was pretty exciting," Holmes says, grinning.

What's even more difficult for Holmes' parents to adjust to is their famous daughter's increasingly provocative behavior on screen - like her heavy make-out session with the drug dealer (played by Timothy Olyphant) in Go. "They get a little nervous, and I have to remind them that it's acting," Holmes says. "But my parents are great and very supportive. Although they may not agree with what my character does, they recognize that a lot of work went into it."

While growing up, Holmes, who admits she was "very tall, gawky and skinny in the eighth grade," put a lot of work into getting As in school. But unlike her athletic sibs, she wasn't into sports. She was much more interested in all things Barbie. In fact, her collection is still pretty much intact. "I have about twenty dolls, the huge house, hot dog stand, game room, workout center, pool, Corvette and water-slide park," she says.

This doesn't exactly sound like a girl who has a hit TV show, whose movie career is in full swing, who owns her own apartment in Wilmington, North Carolina, which she decorated with a friend ("It kind of looks like an ad for Pottery Barn right now") and who hangs out with cool, famous people like Watson and her DC costars. (Holmes won't comment on her reported romance with Joshua Jackson, saying, "I can't imagine why it's so important to people," but she will confirm that they're great friends.)

The fact is, Holmes isn't the slightest bit stuck-up. Insisting that she's too busy to date seriously right now, the actress says that whenever she has time, she hangs out with her pals back home. "We usually end up driving around late at night," she says, laughing, "and complaining about how there's nothing to do."

Is this one Hollywood star who's too good to be true? Or is there a dark side to Katie Holmes? The question makes her pause. "Traffic, especially in Los Angeles, is a pet peeve of mine. Anything else she really hates? "I don't like being cold. It gets cold in North Carolina [where Dawson's Creek shoots]. I just, like, being a baby, and all the big crew guys give me their jackets."

Holmes was recently accepted into Columbia University, but her plans to attend are on hold. For now, she's happy focusing on her career. "I really enjoy working with everyone and have a great time on the show. I feel very fortunate that I've been able to do that and then cross over to movies. I love doing both." And what about Joey and Dawson's future together as a couple? "I think Dawson and Joey will always go back to each other, leave each other, and then go back - they're young and changing all the time. As for the rumor that they're going to, you know, close the deal," Holmes says, "I'm not so sure about that. I think that would be a very hard episode for my family to watch."

Indeed. In fact, it might just make them reinstate that curfew.