Joshua Jackson endured an exhausting and surreal audition course of to play Pacey Witter on the 2000s WB sequence Dawson’s Creek, judging by what he shared with Jesse Tyler Ferguson.
Within the April 21 episode of Ferguson’s Dinner on Me podcast, Jackson recalled auditioning for Pacey — and for Dawson Leery, the function that went to James Van Der Beek.
“I feel I had, like, 9 auditions for, I feel, first for Pacey, then for Dawson, then again to Pacey,” Jackson mentioned. “After which once I made it to the ultimate, last, last factor, they take you to the Warner Bros. Ranch. I don’t even know if this place exists anymore. The WB had this, like, Quonset hut, principally on the facet. Whenever you stroll in, there’s an enormous gong and a girl on the desk whose job it’s to say ‘WWWB?’ each time she solutions the cellphone. I s*** you not.”
In that room, have been three dozen actors who have been “put into this Starvation Video games second,” Jackson mentioned, likening the tryouts to the life-or-death competitions from Suzanne Collins’ YA books.
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“You spend actually your entire day getting referred to as in teams — [they’re] going, like, ‘OK, you two, you 4’ — getting taken again to the room, you audition, and then you definately come out, and 4 individuals are simply gone, after which two individuals are gone,” Jackson.
Lastly, on the finish of the day, Jackson heard the sound of the gong as he was utilizing the restroom. “I come out of the bathroom, and now each govt from The WB has come from each workplace all over the place and is simply standing there gazing me, and James and Katie [Holmes] and Michelle [Williams], as we’re like, ‘Oh, that is the place they eat us, I suppose. That is what occurs now. They put us within the pot.’ And so they’re like, ‘Congratulations, you simply acquired the job.’ I don’t even assume I knew which function it was that I had lastly auditioned for. They have been identical to, you, you, you, you. That’s how they used to do their castings.”
These 4 actors grew to become family names on the teenager drama, which ran for six seasons between 1998 and 2003. Jackson adopted that job with starring roles in Fringe, The Affair, Little Fires All over the place, and Dr. Dying. Now he’s starring as Dr. Max Bankman on Physician Odyssey.
And on the podcast, Jackson expressed his hope that the gong ritual acquired phased out. “When you hit the gong, everyone has to scurry out of the workplace to get regardless of the information is,” he mentioned. “I wish to assume sooner or later, any individual there was like, ‘This isn’t nice. That is bizarre. Additionally, let’s not make this poor lady say WWWB each time she solutions the cellphone.’”