What you need to know
Busy Phillips reflects on the controversial Dawson’s Creek storyline involving Joshua Jackson.
In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE about her partnership with Zumba, the 46-year-old actress talked about the storyline of the hit teen drama series, which features her former on-screen boyfriend (Jackson) and his character’s teacher.
“They’re not even dating,” Phillips says of the relationship status of her character Audrey Liddell and Jackson’s character Pacey Witter in the pilot episode. “He’s going to have a very inappropriate relationship with a teacher, which is pretty wild, by the way. And he just wants to show how much we’ve changed for the better culturally, right?”
Prior to Phillips’ arrival in season 5, 15-year-old Pacey becomes romantically attracted to 36-year-old English teacher Tamara Jacobs (played by Leanne Hanley). During the first season of the series, Pacey pursues Tamara and eventually loses his virginity to her before the teacher leaves the fictional town of Capeside, Massachusetts.
Movie Store/Shutterstock
At a recent Dawson’s Creek reunion charity event, Ms. Phillips did not play Audrey, but instead read the role of Tamara.
“[Series creator]Kevin Williamson didn’t write the role of Audrey. He wasn’t part of Audrey,” Phillips explains to PEOPLE. “When they went to college, he had already left the show, but my character was added.”
“After the show ended, I said, ‘Kevin, you wrote the role for me on Dawson’s Creek. You didn’t know it would be 20 years before I was old enough to play the role,'” she joked, referring to playing Tamara at the cast reunion.
Alamy
Phillips and Jackson, 47, were joined by co-stars Michelle Williams, Katie Holmes, Mary Beth Pale, John Wesley Shipp, Mary-Margaret Humes, Nina Repeta, Kerr Smith and Meredith Monroe for the one-night-only charity event on September 22nd at the Richard Rodgers Theater in New York City.
The reunion, led by Williams, 45, featured a live reading of the 1998 pilot episode of Dawson’s Creek to raise awareness of cancer and show support for series star James Van Der Beek, 48, who is battling stage 3 colorectal cancer.
The role of Dawson was read by Lin-Manuel Miranda, with former Hamilton co-star Renee Elise Goldsberry narrating and hosting.
Jackson has previously spoken out about the risqué storyline. In 2021, he told Business Insider that he didn’t think the treatment of the plot was necessarily inappropriate, and that he felt it was important to explore that part of young people.
Never miss a news. Sign up for PEOPLE’s free daily newsletter to stay up to date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to human interest stories.
“I think it’s a reality that young people have sexual desire for older people,” he said of the plotline. “But I think the onus remains on the older person to recognize as an adult that it’s inappropriate.”
Ms. Jackson said she “didn’t know” whether Pacey’s romantic encounter with the teacher should have been handled differently in the series.
“Do you think the show should have made a different decision? Maybe it’s part of the double standard,” he said, adding, “I think we need storylines where humans make mistakes. I don’t think we presented it as something beautiful or romantic.”
