Katie Holmes on Directing ‘Happy Hours’ and Reuniting With Joshua Jackson After ‘Dawson’s Creek’

Katie Holmes and Joshua Jackson met nearly three decades ago on the seminal teen drama “Dawson’s Creek,” which launched them and their co-stars, James Van Der Beek and Michelle Williams, to global stardom. When Holmes and Jackson reconnected all these years later on “Happy Hours,” a romantic dramedy that premieres Saturday at Tribeca Festival, they weren’t prepared for the public to be so invested in their reunion.

Sure enough, TikTok was flooded with videos from fans who caught wind of the production schedule and followed them around as they filmed in the East Village and other parts of New York City. Naturally, those social media posts involved captions about the joys of seeing Joey (Holmes) and Pacey (Jackson) back together.

“To be honest, it was unexpected,” says a giggly Holmes during a recent Zoom interview. “I know we were on a show that a lot of people watched, but I guess we never fully realized the impact. It still kind of throws all of us.”

Manhattan is already a hectic place to shoot a movie, and all the added attention required some adjustments to filming locations. They also took steps to lock down especially populated locations such as Washington Square Park, where several scenes are set.

“We didn’t want anyone to record us. Sometimes it worked; obviously sometimes it didn’t,” Holmes shrugs. “It was nothing we couldn’t handle.”

“Happy Hours” is the fourth film that Holmes has written and directed. The story revolves around two high school sweethearts who serendipitously cross paths years later in the city. Holmes plays Liz, a freshly divorced photographer; Jackson is Andrew, a travel writer who broke her heart as a teen.

As she was casting the film, Holmes rang Jackson for a gut-check — “Is this even a potential? Is this something you’d want to do?” she wondered — before sending over the script. They were keen to collaborate again but wanted to make sure that nobody would mistake “Happy Hours” as a “Dawson’s Creek” reboot.

“We hadn’t worked together in 25 years, and we’ve changed a lot,” Holmes says. “We also wanted to give ourselves the space to show different sides of ourselves and to not portray these people we’re known for.”

They may not be returning as Joey and Pacey, but Holmes and Jackson soon fell back into a familiar rhythm.

“It’s like a shorthand that we quickly realize still exists,” she says. “We’ve always done well working off one another. He directs me and I direct him without us even mentioning it.”

That’s good because Holmes envisions “Happy Hours” as the first installment in a trilogy — her version of Richard Linklater’s “Before” series, the love story that follows a couple (Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy) across 20 years and three films. She was also inspired by “Something’s Gotta Give,” the 2003 romantic comedy with Jack Nicholson and Diane Keaton about later-in-life lovers. There’s baggage that comes with getting older, and that’s not usually explored in meet-cutes about 20-somethings.

“It’s important to tell love stories that take place in many different chapters of a person’s life,” Holmes says. “You’re allowed to fall in love in middle age. I think that’s a little underrepresented [in media].”

Unlike the “Before” movies — “Before Sunrise,” “Before Sunset” and “Before Midnight” take place at nine-years intervals — Holmes doesn’t want such a lapse between installments. “Otherwise we’ll be, like, you know, older,” she says with a laugh.

Holmes skirts the idea that “Happy Hours” was inspired by real life. (She and Jackson dated during their “Dawson’s Creek” years.) She says she was inspired to write the movie after emerging from the isolation of the pandemic.

“We are seemingly so connected, but we’re still so isolated emotionally,” she says. “There’s dating app fatigue; it’s not easy for people to come together.”

After her prior film, 2023’s “Rare Objects,” a drama about a young woman who rebuilds her life after a traumatic experience, Holmes was happy to tackle a lighter subject. “I wanted to put some joy and hope into the world. I hope people laugh too.”