“We gotta give the people what they want,” Philipps remembered her former costar telling her.
Busy Philipps didn’t hold back when sharing about her steamy kiss with Joshua Jackson during the recent Dawson’s Creek reunion in New York City.
On Sunday, she posted photos and videos capturing the memorable moment with her former on-screen love interest at the one-night-only charity event on September 22, while also explaining how the kiss happened.
“LOL to Josh’s response when I said after our last rehearsal, ‘I mean we COULD really kiss,’” Philipps wrote on Instagram. “And he looked at me and said, ‘I mean… I think we gotta give the people what they want.’”
At last week’s event, most of the Dawson’s Creek cast reunited onstage at the Richard Rodgers Theatre for a live reading of the pilot script, in partnership with F Cancer.
Since joining the show in Season 5 as Audrey, Busy Philipps read the role of Tamara Jacobs (originally played by Leann Hunley), the teacher who seduced her 15-year-old student Pacey (Joshua Jackson) early in the series.
When the script reached the scene where Pacey and Tamara share a kiss, Jackson and Philipps recreated the moment onstage, complete with an exaggerated dip, sending the audience into a frenzy.
On the show, Philipps’ and Jackson’s characters eventually became a couple.
The reunion event for Dawson’s Creek the beloved 1998 teen drama was organized by Michelle Williams and brought together cast members including Katie Holmes, Mary Beth Peil, John Wesley Shipp, Mary-Margaret Humes, Nina Repeta, Kerr Smith, and Meredith Monroe, alongside Jackson and Philipps.
Series star James Van Der Beek had to bow out at the last minute due to illness, but he surprised fans and fellow cast members with a heartfelt video message during the event.
“I have been looking forward to this night for months and months and months ever since my angel Michelle Williams said she would put it together,” Van Der Beek, 48, said in a video message, one day after leaving the charity event due to a stomach virus. The event was raising funds to fight cancer, and Van Der Beek himself was diagnosed with colorectal cancer in 2024.
He then joked that his replacement in the live reading was a “young up-and-comer,” as the role of Dawson was humorously filled by Hamilton star Lin-Manuel Miranda, who ran onstage after the clip played.
Footage from the event shows Van Der Beek’s children performing the iconic Dawson’s Creek theme song, Paula Cole’s “I Don’t Want to Wait,” alongside cast members onstage, with the audience standing in appreciation.
On social media, Busy Philipps praised the Van Der Beek family for “continuing to show us all what real love and strength looks like in the face of this disease.” She added, “James was missed so much, but his videos and the light of his family lifted us all up!! F cancer for REAL.”