Whether in "Batman Begins", "Ocean's Eight" or the six seasons of "Dawson's Creek": Katie Holmes (44) has played a wide variety of roles over the past 25 years. But her career almost ended before she could really get going. As Holmes revealed as a guest on "Tonight Show" with Jimmy Fallon (48), she was about to turn her back on Hollywood in 1997.

At that time, at the age of 17, she had just made her film debut in Ang Lee's (68) drama "The Ice Storm" and was actually certain that she had found her profession in the form of acting. Apparently, the film studios didn't see it that way at first: "I shot videos for various auditions, but I didn't get anything in return."

At this point she realized that she might stay with this one role forever and that she wasn't made for show business. At least, Holmes jokes, her possibly one-off trip to Hollywood gave her a nice anecdote to "tell her grandchildren."

But as you know, everything turned out differently. Holmes didn't give up and landed a role in 1998 that opened the door to the dream factory. 128 episodes and for over five years she mimed Josephine "Joey" Potter in the teen drama series "Dawson's Creek", which also made stars of James Van Der Beek (45), Michelle Williams (42) and Joshua Jackson (44).

It hasn't stayed with acting since then. In the meantime, Holmes has sat in the director's chair for the second time: in 2016 her debut film "All We Had" was released, in which she also starred. This is also the case in the drama "Alone Together", which was released in 2022, for which she also wrote the screenplay.