Kerr Smith’s Memoir Reveals an Unspoken Dawson’s Creek Love Triangle

Kerr Smith says romantic tensions among Dawson’s Creek cast members lingered behind the scenes of the hit drama, according to his new memoir, I Don’t Want to Wait: My Life on Dawson’s Creek. Smith joined the series as Jack McPhee in its second season and writes about relationships among the cast during the show’s 1998–2003 run. The book describes an alleged real-life triangle involving James Van Der Beek, Joshua Jackson and Katie Holmes, who played Dawson Leery, Pacey Witter and Joey Potter. Smith suggests that the cast’s off-camera lives at times echoed the romantic rivalry viewers watched on screen. He characterizes the relationships as unsurprising among young, attractive actors, rather than as a major scandal. Smith writes that when he arrived in 1998, Van Der Beek and Jackson were professional while filming but did not socialize away from the set. He says he cannot recall the two having a conversation and describes their distance as an unspoken undercurrent that lasted through much of the series. In his telling, the tension did not interfere with the work or stop the show from going on, though cast members noticed it. Mary-Margaret Humes, who played Dawson’s mother, Gail Leery, later told Smith that the situation had been uncomfortable to witness and sad. The excerpt also refers to an occasion when she intervened after Van Der Beek declined an invitation from Jackson to attend a movie. The account frames the friction as quiet and contained, rather than as a dispute that disrupted production. Smith’s recollections offer a behind-the-scenes perspective on the relationships among the show’s cast. His memoir presents the alleged romantic history as something colleagues knew about but rarely discussed openly, with the actors maintaining their professional responsibilities despite the reported distance.