# Kerr Smith recalls Dawson’s Creek’s landmark kiss and its personal cost

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/we-did-10-takes-of-it-kerr-smith-on-dawsons-creek-and-filming-us-tvs-first-gay-kiss/
- Published: 2026-11-09T11:00:08+00:00
- Updated: 2026-11-09T11:32:28+00:00
- Original publisher: The Guardian (publisher lean: Left)
- Original article: https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/nov/09/kerr-smith-dawsons-creek-tv
- Topics: Americas, Celebrity, Culture, Entertainment, Film, TV, World

## Key points

- Smith reflects on Dawson’s Creek in a new memoir.
- Jack’s storyline made TV history with a primetime gay kiss.
- The scene took ten takes to film.

## Summary

Kerr Smith says the five seasons he spent playing Jack McPhee on Dawson’s Creek set a standard he has spent much of his career trying to recapture. In a new memoir, he looks back on the show’s cultural impact, the cast and crew, and the personal cost of playing a gay character amid 1990s homophobia.

Smith joined the series in 1998, initially as a character meant to complicate Dawson and Joey’s relationship. Creator Kevin Williamson later asked him to take Jack in a new direction, making him the focus of a coming-out storyline and half of US network television’s first primetime kiss between two men. Smith recalls that he and Adam Kaufman filmed the kiss ten times, and describes being nervous despite a director’s reminder that the scene was simply about two characters who loved each other.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.