Dawson's Creek Stars Katie Holmes and Joshua Jackson Reunite for Rom-Com After 25 Years

When Katie Holmes decided to write and direct a romantic comedy, she knew exactly who she wanted opposite her—and it turned out the internet knew it too. The reunion of Holmes and Joshua Jackson for their upcoming film Happy Hours has become the kind of moment that reminds you why nostalgia hits different when it’s actually warranted.

Holmes and Jackson spent their twenties as Pacey and Joey on Dawson’s Creek, playing out one of television’s most compelling will-they-won’t-they dynamics. They dated briefly in real life before the show premiered in 1998, then continued working together as their characters eventually became the love interests fans had been rooting for all along. That kind of history doesn’t just disappear—and according to Holmes, the chemistry was still undeniably there when they reunited last summer to film in New York City.

What makes this collaboration interesting isn’t just the nostalgia factor, though that’s definitely what got people’s phones out last summer when paparazzi caught them on set. It’s that Holmes and Jackson are deliberately trying to avoid becoming caricatures of their younger selves. We haven’t worked together in 25 years, and we’ve changed a lot, Holmes explained to Variety on Friday, June 5. We also wanted to give ourselves the space to show different sides of ourselves and to not portray these people we’re known for. That’s the mature move—they’re not leaning into Pacey and Joey callbacks; they’re using that foundation of trust to tell a fresh story.

Jackson has described the experience as magic, and if his comments are any indication, the project goes deeper than a quick cash-in on’90s nostalgia. Happy Hours will actually be a trilogy exploring three phases of a love story, with the first installment covering the falling-in-love phase. Katie wrote this beautiful story for the two of us that is the three phases of a love story, Jackson said in a March interview with Today. So we shot the fun part, which is the falling in love, and she’s cutting it together now.

The viral photos from last summer’s shoot weren’t entirely surprising—Dawson’s Creek still means something to the people who grew up with it. But Holmes was honest about the reality of filming with that kind of attention: They didn’t want anyone recording them, sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. It was nothing we couldn’t handle. That’s restraint worth noting in an era where every moment gets turned into content before it’s even processed.

At 47 years old, both Holmes and Jackson have lived entire careers beyond that teen drama. Yet there’s something compelling about two people returning to a creative partnership after this much time has passed—not as a greatest-hits tour, but as a genuine artistic collaboration. The shorthand still exists, as Holmes put it. That’s worth paying attention to when the film arrives.