Nice Girls Finish First -- Life Magazine, March 1999

By Marilyn Johnson

"So, what does it mean that a very nice girl playing a very thoughtful girl has become TV's teen idol? Consider it a good sign."

Today is Katie Holmes's last day to be a teenager. "What should I do? Eat a bunch of cookie dough? Play ding dong ditch? Call random boys on the telephone?" She laughs and pushes a pair of thick black geeky glasses against the bridge of her nose. Two years ago, she was a Catholic schoolgirl from Ohio, a straight-A student who didn't date much; now she's the most popular teen on TV. She's just kidding about ringing somebody's doorbell then running away. She has better things to do.

As Joey on the WB network's hit drama Dawson's Creek, Holmes, now 20, has had seismic influences on teen life. She plays a smart, sarcastic 15-year-old who faces challenges ranging form a father in prison for dealing pot to a romance with her male best friend. Through it all, Joey has managed to hang on to her integrity—and virginity. The teens are thoughtful and articulate. It's their parents who act like children, betray each other and get caught making out in the living room. The show—and Katie's character in particular—has touched a nerve.

On a break from taping the show in Wilmington, N.C., Katie relaxes in a trailer littered with birthday presents (among them: a fetching hat and a bottle of vodka). She has everything she wants, and more money to take to the mall than she could ever spend. But, amazingly, she seems unspoiled. "We have so much freedom these days," she says of her generation. "We know there are ways [besides money] to fulfill our dreams." She started out small in Toledo, acting out scenes with her 20 Barbies and their accessories. "The house, the hot dog stand, the workout center. Santa was good to me." But she knows life isn't about having the most toys. Making movies when Creek is on hiatus (Go! and Killing Mrs. Tingle are due this year), she is trying to balance a career as challenging as Meryl Streep's with a stint of college like another role model, Jodie Foster (Holmes deferred enrollment at Columbia). "There's so much growing I want to do as a person," she says.

Playing the diva is not her style. When she is called to the set, she's too unassuming to stride arrogantly through a stream of extras—college boys paid $6 and hour—stricken mute in her presence. Once in position, Katie—five foot seven or so, apple-cheeked, the girl next door—begins to gossip with a friend on the tech crew about scripts sent to her. "I read a great one," she says gleefully. "I'd get to be a heroin addict and die of an overdose!"

Katie's parents, Marty and Kathy, know she's just acting, but all the same, Mom is glad that she plays a "pretty nice character" on Dawson's Creek. A lawyer and a homemaker who have four older children, they—and the whole clan—are loving but strict ("I don't have four siblings. I have six parents," explains Katie). Such is their relationship that Katie was unsure, on a recent trip home, whether her 12:30a.m. curfew was still in effect.

Their restrictions never extended to Katie's creativity. They let her attend a local modeling school and, at 16, compete in the International Modeling and Talent competition in New York City (she won Talent of the Year). A manager followed who landed her a role in the acclaimed motion picture The Ice Storm. But education is important to the Holmeses (Mom is in school studying nursing), and they made it clear that Katie could pursue acting as long as she finished high school. When she got a call to audition for Creek the same weekend as opening night of Damn Yankees, the high school production in which she was the lead, Katie and her parents agreed that she couldn't let down her friends. The producers settled for a videotape—shot two weeks earlier with a family video camera on a tripod in a basement sewing room—until she was free. She and her mom acted out a converstaion between Joey and her best friend, a boy named Dawson. Among Katie's lines: "Well, YOU have genitalia" and "How often DO you masturbate?" "I had to say this to my mom," she groans. She won the role.

In Wilmington, she misses Saturday morning coffee with her mom and sister, and spends a lot of time on the phone with her friends back home or reading. She likes Oprah's recommended list. She's had one serious boyfriend but can't yet imagine marriage and children. Her best time just might have been during last summer's hiatus when she shot Killing Mrs. Tingle with Helen Mirren in L.A. and spent Friday nights hanging out with the crew, perfecting a karaoke act.

The only time she gets nervous, it seems, is when she is trailed in public, mainly by 13-year-old girls. "They giggle, and I feel so stupid. I feel like my stomach's exploding inside. I want to tell them. 'I'm not Joey, honey. Joey doesn't exist.' I hope kids will also look up to people who are real, like their parents. There are people doing really good things in the world. I'm not doing anything," she says, with enviable modesty and perspective, then adds, "I'm just having a blast."