Joshua Jackson Thinks His Crying Face Is Better Than James Van Der Beek’s
The cast of Dawson’s Creek recently celebrated the show’s 20th anniversary with a reunion, and now two of the stars are paying hilarious homage to one of the most iconic moments to come out of the series’ six seasons: James Van Der Beek’s infamous crying face.
Joshua Jackson, AKA Pacey Witter, took to Instagram on Sunday, August 12, to challenge his former costar to a crying-face contest. “I’m coming for your crown @vanderjames,” he wrote, sharing a still of his scrunched-up face from an intensely emotional scene in The Affair‘s August 5 episode, side-by-side with Van Der Beek’s meme-worthy Dawson’s Creek scene.
Van Der Beek himself took note of the challenge and quickly replied in kind with a confident, “Bring it.”
Van Der Beek, who played the show’s titular Dawson Leery, acted out the famous scene in season 3 of the watershed WB teen drama. In the finale, Joey (Katie Holmes) left her childhood best friend and on-again, off-again boyfriend Dawson (Van Der Beek) to be with his other best friend Pacey (Jackson). Waterworks ensued, and a meme was born. Dawson’s crying face is still a popular reaction GIF and photo to this day.
Recently, at the cast reunion set up by Entertainment Weekly, Van Der Beek revisited the viral screenshot, telling his costars, “I feel like everybody on this show cried more than I did and I was the one who got caught in the loop!”
Fortunately, he has a good sense of humor about it. “I love it. It’s my favorite thing about the whole show,” he quipped. “It’s hilarious to me that you can work for six years on a show … and it gets boiled down to three seconds. It’s a perfect way-of-the-internet.”
Time will tell if Jackson’s crying face lives on in similar infamy. In the meantime, we may get to see it again in the season finale of The Affair, which airs August 19 on Showtime.
Whose crying face do you like best? Let us know @BritandCo!
(photo via Emma McIntyre/Getty Images for Families Belong Together LA)
