Katie Holmes turned heads Monday night at the Old Navy x Christopher John Rogers launch event at Old Navy Times Square in New York City, and the reaction online was immediate. The 47-year-old actor, who rose to stardom as Joey Potter on Dawson’s Creek, was described as looking so good that Internet commenters were in a frenzy.
The attention came as Holmes remains a familiar figure from a career that moved from Dawson’s Creek into films including Batman Begins and Thank You For Smoking. She also has a long history with Joshua Jackson, her former Dawson’s Creek co-star, and the pair reunited this past summer for Happy Hours, the trilogy Holmes wrote, starred in, and directed.
That project was described to Deadline as a story about two people navigating their relationship within the challenges of careers and family responsibilities and the pursuit of love, a premise that fits Holmes’ current public image as much as her earlier screen work. Her life outside the frame has also kept her in the news: she married Tom Cruise in 2006, the marriage ended in 2012, and she is the mother of Suri.
Holmes generally stays out of the spotlight, but she has spent years as a paparazzi target since her marriage to Cruise, and she has shown she will push back when she thinks reporting crosses a line. Last year, after a Daily Mail story referred to her daughter as “Suri Cruise the millionaire,” she wrote, “You can stop making stuff up,” followed by “Enough” in the caption.
She later said she “doesn’t disagree” with a response about rent and food, but still felt it was important to defend her daughter, adding, “But in the world today, I don’t want a target on my child’s back,” and, “It’s dangerous.” That is the tension around Holmes now: public fascination keeps following her, but she is still trying to decide which parts of her private life are hers to protect. Monday’s appearance showed the same thing in a lighter register — a rare outing that set off a wave of attention, and a reminder that Holmes can still command it when she chooses to step into view.
