Katie Holmes

Katie Holmes is an American actress, producer, and director whose three-decade career has produced multiple defining American TV and film roles — particularly her 1998–2003 lead role as Joey Potter on the WB's TV series Dawson's Creek. She was born Kate Noelle Holmes on December 18, 1978, in Toledo, Ohio. Her father Martin Joseph Holmes Sr. was an Ohio attorney, and her mother Kathleen Stothers-Holmes was a homemaker.

Her 1997 first feature-film appearance in Ang Lee's The Ice Storm (in which she played Libbets Casey, opposite Kevin Kline, Joan Allen, and Sigourney Weaver) launched her early-career American film public profile. Her January 20, 1998 first-broadcast appearance as Joey Potter on the WB's Dawson's Creek — the Kevin Williamson-created teen-drama, alongside James Van Der Beek, Joshua Jackson, and Michelle Williams — launched her late-1990s and 2000s American TV-teen-drama public profile.

The Dawson's Creek series ran for 128 episodes across six seasons (1998–2003) and produced her 2000s American TV public profile. Her parallel film career has produced multiple American films — particularly Stephen Norrington's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003), Doug Liman's Mr. and Mrs. Smith (2005, in which she had a small uncredited role as a model), Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins (2005, in which she played Rachel Dawes opposite Christian Bale), Curtis Hanson's Lucky You (2007, opposite Eric Bana and Drew Barrymore), and Mike Newell's The Romantics (2010, which she starred in and produced).

Her April 27, 2005 announcement of her relationship with American actor Tom Cruise — and her subsequent November 18, 2006 wedding to Cruise at the Odescalchi Castle in Bracciano, Italy — shaped her late-2000s American public profile. The 2006–2012 marriage produced one daughter (American actress Suri Cruise, born April 18, 2006). Her June 28, 2012 divorce filing from Cruise — at the New York Supreme Court — shaped her late-career biographical narrative. She has been with American musician Bobby Wooten III since 2022.

Her name Katie derives from the English diminutive of Katherine (from the Greek Aikaterinē meaning "pure"). Katie has been a popular American girls' name across the late 19th and 20th centuries.