Katie Holmes (born December 18 1978) is an American actress who first achieved fame for her role as Joey Potter on The WB television teen drama Dawson's Creek from 1998 to 2003. Her movie roles have ranged from art house films such as The Ice Storm to thrillers such as Abandon to blockbusters such as Batman Begins.

In early 2005, Holmes began a highly publicized relationship with actor Tom Cruise, sixteen years her senior. In June, two months after they first met, Holmes and Cruise were engaged. Their relationship made Holmes the subject of international media attention, much of it negative, including speculation the relationship was a publicity stunt to promote the couple's films. Holmes, who raised a Roman Catholic, joined the Church of Scientology shortly after the couple began dating. The couple announced Holmes was pregnant in October 2005; on April 18, 2006, she gave birth to Suri Cruise. On November 18, 2006, she and Cruise were married in Italy.

Born and raised in Toledo, Ohio, Katie Holmes acted in high school theater productions before meeting a manager who encouraged her to go to LA for television's pilot season. She won a part in the acclaimed feature film Ice Storm, The (1997) in her very first audition, but she didn't stop there. A videotape was sent to "Dawson's Creek" (1998), a new production by the acclaimed writer Kevin Williamson (I) (Scream (1996/I), I Know What You Did Last Summer (1997)), which landed her the series regular role of Joey Potter.

Born two months premature at four pounds, Kate Noelle Holmes made her first appearance on December 18, 1978, in Toledo, Ohio. Her parents, Martin and Kathleen, say that her strong-willed personality is probably from being born premature. Being the youngest in the Holmes clan, completing the family of three other sisters and one brother, Katie was always the baby. As a teenager, she began attending modeling school. When she was sixteen, her teacher invited her to go to a modeling competition with other girls from her class. She competed in the International Modeling and Talent Association by singing, dancing, and reciting a monologue from To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). By the end of that time in New York, Katie won many awards. But she said she didn't want to model because it wasn't challenging enough. So when she was seventeen, Katie went to Los Angeles to audition for movies. Luckily, on her second audition, she was cast in the movie, Ice Storm, The (1997), directed by Ang Lee. Katie's character was Libbets Casey, a rich New Yorker, who is pursued by two of the main characters. It was a small part, but it marked the beginning of her professional acting career. After the excitement of her first movie, Katie began sending in audition tapes for pilot shows. During that time, she was also starring in her all-girls Catholic high school musical, Damn Yankees, as Lola. After Kevin Williamson (I) received her audition tape for his new show, "Dawson's Creek" (1998), the producers wanted her to come to Hollywood right away and read live for them. But because they wanted her to come on the opening night for Damn Yankees, Katie had to tell them she couldn't make it. Fortunately, the show's producers wanted her so much for that role, they rescheduled her callback and the result was she got the part as Joey Potter. During her first year with "Dawson's Creek" (1998), Katie was able to do two movies, Disturbing Behavior (1998) and Go (1999), and, for the former, she won Best Breakthrough Female Performance in the 1999 MTV Movie Awards. The following year, she starred next to Michael Douglas (I) in Wonder Boys (2000), playing Hannah Green, a published author and a boarder at her teacher's (Douglas) house, who has a crush on him, and tries to seduce him. Her first leading role came in 2002, with Abandon (2002). She played a college student named Katie Burke, who is haunted by the mysterious disappearance of her boyfriend who vanished two years prior. With "Dawson's Creek" (1998) coming to a close after six years in May of 2003, it was a bittersweet thing for all the cast. Accustomed to being in North Carolina filming ten months out of a year, the cast members now had the opportunity to make more movies. Katie demonstrated this in October, when she had two new movies, Pieces of April (2003) and Singing Detective, The (2003), coming out in that month alone. Pieces of April (2003) is a charming Thanksgiving movie about April (Holmes), the black sheep of her family, who wants to give her family the perfect dinner before her mother passes on. Singing Detective, The (2003) is a dark musical where the main character (Robert Downey Jr.) is a writer in a hospital for skin conditions who writes a dark world of seduction and murder in his mind. Katie Holmes plays the kind Nurse Mills who tends to his every need. She also gets to lip-sing and dance in this movie. Her 2004 movie schedule included the upcoming romantic movie First Daughter (2004), in which she plays the President's (Michael Keaton) daughter, Samantha, who wants to go to college without any Secret Service tagging along. Currently filming for release in 2005 is Batman Begins (2005), a new Batman movie where Katie plays Rachel Dawes, a childhood sweetheart and love interest to Batman/Bruce Wayne.