Katie Holmes

A Manager Makes it Official

As a student at Margaret O'Brien's International Modeling School in Toledo, Holmes studies both modeling and acting. She attends a talent convention in New York City, where she signs up with a manager.

Priorities, Priorities

In her mother's sewing room, Holmes records a home-video audition for Dawson's Creek, with her mother reading Dawson's lines. Williamson asks her to fly out to L.A. for a screen test, but Holmes declines; the trip coincides with her performance in her high school musical Damn Yankees, and she doesn't want to let down her friends. Williamson agrees to reschedule, and Holmes wins the part of girl-next-door Joey Potter.

"First Love" Found

During filming of the first season of Dawson's Creek, Holmes and her Dawson's Creek costar Joshua Jackson, who plays Pacey Witter, have a brief romance. She considers Jackson her "first love." "It was something so incredible and indescribable that I will treasure it always," she tells Rolling Stone.

February 25

Riskier Wonder Girl

Onscreen for six and half minutes in Wonder Boys, Holmes plays a coed temptress trying to seduce her aging professor played by Michael Douglas, who calls Holmes "a natural." She continues to break her wholesome image with her first nude scene in The Gift opposite Greg Kinnear (right). "I thought it was important to the scene and to the character," she tells GQ. "I just hope there aren't a lot of pause buttons on DVD players."