Back to Capeside: Kerr Smith Opens the Vault on 'Dawson's Creek' in New Memoir

For a generation that came of age in the late 1990s, few sounds are as evocative as the opening notes of Paula Cole's "I Don't Want to Wait." Now actor Kerr Smith has borrowed that anthem for the title of his new memoir, I Don't Want to Wait: My Life on Dawson's Creek. The book looks back on his years on the teen drama that became a defining show of its era.

Smith discussed the project in a segment aired by CBS News, which described the book as a look back at his time on the "iconic teen drama." The memoir arrives as audiences continue to revisit late-'90s television on streaming platforms, and as the show's original viewers reach an age that invites reflection.

A Character Who Changed the Conversation

Created by Kevin Williamson and broadcast on The WB from 1998 to 2003, Dawson's Creek followed a group of friends in the fictional coastal town of Capeside, Massachusetts. Its teenagers spoke in famously articulate, sometimes wordy dialogue. Critics teased the style, but fans adored it.

Smith joined the series as Jack McPhee, a quiet newcomer whose storyline became one of the show's most significant. Jack's coming-out arc unfolded on network television at a time when gay characters, especially young ones, were rarely given room to be complicated, ordinary or central to the story. In the 2000 season finale, Jack shared a kiss with another young man. The moment is widely cited as a milestone in primetime television, and many viewers have said over the years that it mattered to them deeply.

That legacy gives Smith's memoir weight beyond nostalgia. Smith, a straight actor, played a role that put him at the center of a national conversation about representation. His account offers a view from inside a cultural shift that, at the time, felt less like a wave than the first hairline crack in a dam.

Memory as Its Own Kind of Creek

Memoirs about beloved shows often depend on a balance between affection and candor. Readers want the warm glow of the set, the friendships and the inside jokes. They also want an honest reckoning with long hours, sudden fame and the pressures of growing up in front of a camera. Smith's title suggests urgency, a sense that some stories have waited long enough to be told.

The timing fits a broader pattern. Former stars of '90s and early-2000s series have turned to podcasts, rewatch projects and books to reclaim their own narratives. For actors whose youth was preserved in syndication, looking back is less a stroll down memory lane than a careful walk across a frozen pond. The surface looks familiar, but what lies underneath can still surprise them.

Why It Still Resonates

Dawson's Creek endures partly because it treated teenage feelings as serious business. Jack's journey in particular showed that a teen soap could carry real social stakes. Smith's decision to revisit that chapter in his own words invites longtime fans, and newer viewers discovering the show on streaming, to see the series through the eyes of someone who helped shape its most consequential storyline.

The memoir, as its title promises, does not wait to make its case: some of television's most lasting moments happened on a small creek in a town that never existed.