Sweet Katie Holmes is making audiences tingle
all over with her string of sexy roles
by John A. Taglioli

America's latest sweetheart, Katie Holmes, has so far steamed up the cameras for Dawson's Creek and kissed a drug dealer on a stairwell in Go. But in her latest movie, Teaching Mrs. Tingle, ripping her clothes off was a lot more difficult than she'd imagined. "You have to remember, just two years ago I was at an all-girls convent school," she says. "I didn't even know how to talk to boys, and now I'm having this sex scene with Barry Watson!"

Katie goes on to say of the scene with Barry, star of the TV series 7th Heaven, "I was so nervous. I just didn't want to mess up. And I was worried I'd be a bad kisser," she giggles. "I'm only 20 and he's 25 and a lot more experienced than I am. And also, it was awkward, because I'd just spent two months every day with him.

"As soon as we met we got along so well - we were joined at the hip for the shoot, so, naturally, that scene was going to be difficult. But we had a good time. We'd joke around and give each other breath mints every five minutes."

Written by Kevin Williamson (Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Dawson's Creek), Teaching Mrs. Tingle marks his directorial debut. The hip, edgy black comedy is about a teacher (the award-winning Helen Mirren) who terrorizes her students, and the revenge they finally take on her.

Says Katie, whom Kevin refers to as his "little sister": "You'd think Kevin would have tried to make me feel comfortable in that scene with Barry, but he'd yell, 'Come on, Katie - louder!' to embarrass me even more!" Throughout it all, Katie has kept up her friendship with the actor. The two were seen recently hamming it up at LA hot spot Sage Bruch Cantina, doing a karaoke version of the Grease hit You're The One That I Want.

"He's pretty damn handsome," Katie agrees, insisting that they're just friends. She's also keeping mum about her on-again, off-again relationship with her Dawson's Creek co-star Joshua Jackson. "I really don't want to talk about it, other than to say we're just friends," she says.

Since the whirlwind success of Dawson's Creek, Katie's made a conscious effort to remain as down-to-earth as possible. "Just a couple of years ago, I was graduating from high school, so you can imagine my life has been overwhelming since the show," she notes. "It's been very surreal. I feel fortunate that I'm very close to the cast. And it was nice to go through it together, because we all looked to each other for support, and I think we provided that. We're all kind of enjoying it. You never know how long it's going to last."

Dawson's Creek is filmed over nine months of the year, in rural North Carolina, which has largely protected the cast from the baggage of their new-found celebrity. "We're very rarely confronted with any acknowledgement of who we are, because we're living in a small town most of the year," says Katie. "It's nice to be away from Hollywood and all the distractions that come along with living in LA. We all hang out together in North Carolina. We go to the beach, eat at a lot of the same restaurants, and occasionally we'll go on road trips together and just keep each other company.

Casting Katie in Teaching Mrs. Tingle would more than imply she's Kevin's favorite member of the show. "I think, for the most art, the rest of the cast are happy for me," she says. "Kevin and I have a unique friendship, and I don't really know how they feel about that."

More than just friends, Kevin also acts as Katie's surrogate father when she lives in his LA home, while Dawson's Creek is on hiatus. "I know her parents, and they don't want her out in LA without supervision," he says.

"She'll come home from a date, and I'll say, 'Oh, no. You can't see him again'. The other day she went to have coffee with a 33-year-old actor. I said, 'Katie, you're 20. He's my age! That's sick, and it's just not happening," he laughs.

"I'm so overprotective. I bought her a cell phone just so I can keep tabs on her. I call her all the time, saying, 'Where are you? When are you coming home?' I know I'm over the top, but I have a caretaker type of personality - maybe I've been in therapy too long. But Katie is so sweet, and LA is just a jungle. It really makes me nervous."

Growing up in what she describes as a very sheltered life in Toledo, Ohio, as the youngest child in a family of five kids, Katie still remains close to her family and childhood friends. "I grew up with about five girlfriends, and nothing's changed between us," she says. "They all really make me sane."

In her next movie, Wonder Boys, the actress will be playing a flirtatious student with a crush on her teacher, Michael Douglas - something that really must have made Kevin nervous. Katie laughs loudly at the suggestion. "Well, it was obvious Michael had eyes for someone else," she says, referring to his relationship with actress Catherine Zeta Jones.

"I play a very mature, confident young woman. The type of girl all the guys want - which is kind of different from me," she says, with a flash of self-deprecation. "And just because my character has a thing for her teacher, doesn't mean that it's reciprocated."

Although she's obviously had to grow up faster than your average 20-year-old, Katie admits she still gets star struck. "Particularly when I meet the older movie stars, "she offers. "I just immediately close off, can't talk at all, and start giggling. It's like being at a dance again, and a cute boy comes up and you finally have your moment but you don't know what to do with it. Looking back on the last couple of years, I don't think I've changed too much at all."