Kerr Smith, former Dawson’s Creek actor, on being half of network television’s first gay kiss almost twenty years ago:
“We were the first ones to do that. It was a crazy experience back then but you’re right, look at every single show now, it’s pretty amazing. There’s always a gay storyline, or a lesbian storyline or whatever. I was talking to Casey [Cott, on Riverdale] and he’s playing pretty much the same character I played on Dawson’s. I remember the day when Kevin Williamson came down to … where we shot, and he took me out, he said, ‘Kerr, let’s go get some coffee.’ I’m going, ‘Oh no, am I fired?’ And he throws this idea, ‘We want to go down a different avenue with Jack,’ and I go, ‘What does that mean?' Obviously, he always had the intention of making one of his characters gay, he was still in the closet at that point and every character in ‘Dawson’s Creek’ is an extension of Kevin Williamson. My storyline ended up being largely Greg Berlanti’s. It was an intense experience and I remember calling everybody that I respected and said, ‘Hey should I do this?’ Doing the first male-male kiss, I remember it was intense. Josh Jackson, I remember it was the only time he came into work when he didn’t have to work. I’m glad we did it and it was part of history.”
It was probably the first time that a lot of young gay men saw themselves, or who they could be, on television, and that counts for something.
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