Katie Holmes Is Growing Up!
by: Samantha Clode

Katie Holmes is up to no good. America's most cleancut teenager is trying to convince me that she's just your average, girl-next-door type. "I'm pretty boring," Holmes smiles innocently, looking fresh faced in a hot pink, floor length summer dress and sandals, prettier in person than her TV image suggests.

Katie Holmes - aka Joey Potter, the girl most likely to get down and dirty with with TV's most eloquent 16-year-old, Dawson Leery - is a star. And with the upcoming release of first GO! and later Killing Mrs. Tingle, this goody-goody front is going to be blown away. Katie Holmes may claim to be a nice girl, but as the tag line for Go! suggests, life begins at 3am, when Holmes gets it on in a major way with a sexy drug dealer - in his apartment stairwell - while in Killing Mrs. Tingle she's responsible for trying to knock off her teacher. Not the kind of antics you'd normally associate with the beguiling brunette.

Life for Katie Noelle Holmes, this supposedly wholesome girl from Toledo, Ohio, changed drastically last year. From a single bit part as Tobey Maguire's lust object in Ang Lee's critical hit drama The Ice Storm, the 20-year-old Sagittarian actress has become the real breakout star of the biggest teen drama of the late '90s. Teenage boys want to date her, parents want their daughters to be just like her, and millions of young girls around the globe identify with her. She has the potential, says Go! director Doug Liman (who debuted with the indie hit Swingers), to be the next Julia Roberts. But for now, that kind of stardom is, says Holmes, a concept she just can't get her head around.

Asked what it means to be America's latest teen role model, Holmes takes a breath before replying. "I don't feel any need to portray a certain image. I would become neurotic if I started worrying about what everyone was thinking. If people watch the show and follow my career or my life then, I guess, that's flattering. But I don't feel any need to be anything.

Born to a lawyer dad, Martin Holmes, and his wife, Kathy, on December 18, 1978, Katie landed the role of the baby in a family which included three sisters and one brother. Asked what she's inherited from her parents, Holmes smiles, "I'm a mixture of both. I have my dad's competitive edge and determination, and my mom is kind of demure. She's very laid back and even keeled, she says. "And I hope I'm like my mum in that she's very much a person who is very at ease and puts people at ease and is ingratiating. Hopefully some day I can be like that."

Growing up in the sheltered town of Toledo the young Miss Holmes played with her Barbies and attended Notre Dame all-girl school, where she maintained an A average and took up roles in various school plays. Holmes claims she was "a very good girl in school, pretty boring, uptight." Her role models in life were her family. "I was fortunate to be the youngest of five and I was able to watch my siblings go through all of their dramas of high school, go to college and achieve wonderful things," she says.n (Holmes has plans to study at Columbia University in New York, being accepted last year and deferring because of Dawson's Creek.)

Holmes' idealistic family life has, she says, kept her head from growing. Later, talking about the ridiculous pressures put upon actresses in Hollywood when it comes to physical appearance, Holmes claims her upbringing keeps her grounded. "I grew up in an environment full of athletes and unfortunately I wasn't one of them," she smiles. "But my parents are very healthy. We go running on Thanksgiving - I mean what family does that? My dad has this annual race with my family and friends, and makes us all go."

Whilst in junior high Katie traveled to New York City with her mother and attended a modeling convention, where a talent agent spotted the aspiring actress and invited her to attend another convention, this time in LA, held to look for new faces for various pilot productions for television studios. It was here that Holmes got her life-changing break. After meeting the casting director for The Ice Storm, Holmes was granted a small role as Libbets Casey, the girl of Tobey Maguire's dreams who spends most of her onscreen time passed out after mistaking sleeping pills for recreational drugs.

It was not until a year later that Holmes was invited back to audition for what would become Dawson's Creek. Famously, she said no thanks - the audition coincided with the opening night of her school play, Damn Yankees, and she didn['t want to let her friends down. Shocked, the executives caved in anyway, re-scheduling the audition - only the third of her entire career.

"When I was a junior in high school, I was constantly trying to make sure I got everything in and I was a good girl," Holmes says of juggling a burgeoning career with high school life. She pauses, a cheeky grin crossing her face. "But things have changed now..."

Ask your friends to admit it and it might take some cajoling, but Dawson's Creek is just about the best thing on television right now. While 16-year-olds around the world have made James Van Der Beek (the nerdy but loveable protagonist of the show, who went on to star in Varsity Blues) a huge star, older audiences are tuning into the show as well, making it a cult hit whilst still maintaining mainstream appeal. Sure Beverly Hills 90210 had Tori Spelling to laugh at, but the kids of Capeside are smarter, hipper and funnier. The weekly trials of Dawson, Joey, teacher-shagging class clown Pacey Witter (Joshua Jackson) and hardened city chick Jennifer Lindley (Michelle Williams), have proven hugely successful, the show hitting the top of the ratings in countries across the globe.

Created by screenwriter turned director Kevin Williamson, who rejuvenated the teen film genre with the Scream and I Know What You Did Last Summer franchises, Dawson's Creek revolves around the small coastal town lives of the most eloquent teenagers you're likely to meet. The episodes written by Williamson (now a rarer occurrence, as Williamson has reportedly moved on to create another show set in New York called Wasteland, aimed at and about twentysomethings), are sassy, sarcastic and wickedly funny. At its best you'll find Dawson revealing his masturbation habits (in the morning, usually while watching news anchor woman Katie Couric), observe high school students losing their virginity to their hot teacher (Pacey come on down!), or suffer through the pain of coming out (the good-looking but shy Jack McPhee).

While Joey isn't the show's sexy bad girl, she's the one audiences identify with the most: her unrequited love and confusion over sex. Joey is strong-willed (punching out the school jock), but as vulnerable and confused as any other teenage girl (how would you feel if your boyfriend turned out to be gay?). For Holmes, the role means one thing: overnight stardom.

"there's a degree of being aware that people are watching, so you can't necessarily do a lot of things you would do," she says slowly when asked what it's like being America's sweetheart. "But I try not to worry about my image because I don't think that's healthy. My job is to be an actress and portray characters. I don't want to distract myself by being obsessed with putting a certain image out."

Is this world that she fantasized about as a kid different from reality? "Yeah, especially coming from the Midwest and not having anything to do with the movie business or any exposure to do that. You have such a warped perception and it does seem like almost a Disney World type of atmosphere. Don't get me wrong, it has been very exciting and wonderful, it's just there's a lot of work that goes along with it."

The world of TV was never going to be big enough for the young actress, who used her first season break to film three movies: Disturbing Behavior, Go! and Killing Mrs. Tingle. In Disturbing Behavior, released earlier this year, Holmes played an alterna/goth high schooler, eyes lined with kohl, who spends two hours trying to combat preppy zombies invading her school corridors. It wasn't her finest moment, the film popular amongst kids but poorly received by just about everyone else.

Go! is an entirely different kettle of fish. A frenetic energy blast based in the LA underground, it's the heated-up adventures of a group of young people whose lives collide in an unconventional three-part movie structure filled with sex, drugs, and rock & roll. Starring Sarah Polley (The Sweet Hereafter), Jay Mohr (Jerry Maguire), Scott Wolf (Party of Five), William Fichtner, Brekin Meyer and more, Go! gives Holmes the opportunity to break loose. The raunchy love scene in the stairwell for instance.

"Well, I haven't had anything that exciting happen in my life," she laughs when asked how closely she identified with the sex and drugs of the movie. "The closest thing to that was when my friends and I went to Europe, and we had some fun little adventures down there. No ecstasy or run-ins in the hallway with hot guys, but I guess that's why I'm in this business. I get to play fun characters and do things I wouldn't do."

Director Doug Liman, who recently traveled to Sydney to promote the film, was profuse in his praise for the young star. "She was just perfect. She was innocent but strong, and you don't usually see those qualities in the same person.

"Katie's still doing the cute teenage thing - which works, she does it really well. I mean, she's got guys across the world in love with her," he adds. "But at some point she's gonna have to make the transition to playing a young adult - she shouldn't do it too soon, cause she's still young. She has the potential to be the next Julia Roberts. Julia has chosen good films, and that's important. There's a lot of actresses who have the chops to be a Julia Roberts - like Jennifer Anniston, who has picked horrible movies. Vince Vaughn from Swingers had the world as his oyster. He has chosen bad movies. Katie has to ensure she doesn't do that."

Go!, says Liman, is a celebration of life and of taking chances. It's also loaded with drugs, guns and sex - not your average Dawson's Creek episode - and a step above the TV actor teensploitation cash cows that have flooded Hollywood in the last two years (i.e. the woeful Jennifer Love Hewitt vehicle Can't Hardly Wait). It's a factor which should see Holmes transcend the fickle teen queen appeal of the Love Hewitts and Neve Campbells.

Holmes' gritty role in Go! also shows that she is willing to embrace material that stretches beyond the conservative, idyllic depiction of teen life which TV dramas portray. I ask Liman if Holmes had any concern about the subject matter of Go! "No, not at all, because it is an exciting and well-written film," he answers. "I was really expecting reviewers and audiences to object to the film. You've got to understand that in America we have a president and a government that blames ills in society on TV and films. So, we have no gun control, we have no drug rehabilitation in America. We throw people into jail and do nothing to cure them of their problem. It's easier to blame movies, because otherwise they have to blame themselves.

"The most startling example of was that shooting at the high school [Columbine]. That was a big deal. Something should change after that. I was like, surely the absurd approach to guns that pervades America can't continue. You know what changed in America as a result? They had to remove Todd Haynes holding a gun from the cassette box of Go! That is the fallout. You can still buy a gun just as easily but you can't show a gun on a cassette box in Blockbuster."

Holmes' other upcoming project sees her team upwith friends and mentor Kevin Williamson (who calls Holmes "my little sister") in his feature film debut as a director, Killing Mrs. Tingle. (Reports over the Internet suggest the film title is being changed to Teaching Mrs. Tingle as a result of the Columbine massacre.) The film, starring Helen Mirren (Prime Suspect, The Mosquito Coast) as Mrs. Tingle, sees Holmes take on the role of Leigh Ann, a high schooler whose intentions of winning the school scholarship could prove deadly. Co-starring alongside Holmes is another former teen queen whose career practically vanished after landing the cover of Time - Molly Ringwald.

"What was so nice about working with Molly was that I did watch those movies growing up," Holmes smiles, "and it was very surreal to meet her and then work with her, because you do have that huge fantasy. I was completely nervous. I am by no means at the same level that she was at my age, but it was very nice to get her perspective on the business and to talk to her."

Did the star of Pretty In Pink give her any advice? "Mostly that you should have a separate life from acting and be a well-rounded individual, which I think transcends to everyone."

The topic of personal privacy is one that Holmes is slowly having to learn to deal with. Much has been made in the press about her reported off-screen romance with Dawson's co-star Joshua Jackson. Recently Williamson let slip to a reporter on the set that certain cast members were more than just friends when the cameras weren't rolling, causing Jackson to angrily remark, "He shouldn't be talking about that."

"Um...I'm really good friends with Joshua," Katie stumbles when asked if their relationship was hard to keep a secret. "I really don't want to talk about it." Asked if she's heard any good rumors about herself, Holmes grins. "I heard over the internet that I was pregnant, which I thought was just kind of funny. I don't think my parents know about these rumors," she laughs, "and I'm not going to call them saying, 'Guess what they're saying about me now, isn't that funny?' My mum would freak out!"

On the subject of Williamson - whom Holmes considers one of her best friends - the actress is more than willing to talk. When in LA Holmes stays at the filmmaker's house and often ends up offering her opinions. "I forget that he's Kevin Williamson - writer/director guy," she explains. "The last time I cried - and this is like, last week - I woke up one morning and I went into his office and he was finishing his new script. He said, 'Let me read you this scene.' And I'm bawling at 7am in the morning. I'm like, 'Kevin, why do you do this?'"

What about her hometown friends? Has their attitude changed at all? "Not my good friends, it's really nice. I went on vacation with two of my best friends from growing up and they treat me exactly the same, which is comforting. I would be devastated if they didn't. Do they watch Dawson's? "I think they watch occasionally. They call and make fun of me and say things like, [sarcastically] 'Nice shirt.'"

For the moment, Katie Holmes lives by herself for nine months of the year at least in the small town of Wilmington, North Carolina, where he TV series is shot. On Sundays she does her laundry ("I still don't know what to wash with what and what has to be separated"). Asked for her weirdest fan experience, Holmes tells of a recent visit to Boston. "I was there for my little nephew's baptism, and we were in a church and this girl interrupted the ceremony to ask for my autograph. I get 15-year-old girls who like to comment on Dawson: 'Why are you breaking up with him?' Then they proceed to ask whether Joshua or James is available and if they are, could I pass on their phone numbers."

Holmes says that so far she's never lost a boyfriend to someone else, and claims her worst characteristic is a lack of patience. "I have trouble when I'm driving. And I'm completely passive-aggressive, which is the worst kind." So is this aggressive side of Holmes a precursor to the future? "When I was little I threw a lot of tantrums, and maybe secretly I'd like to throw a tantrum sometime. That would be empowering."

Watch out Hollywood: Katie Holmes is growing up!.