Recognizing the filming of Hulu, Dawson’s Creek, they were reminded of the time James Van Der Beek and Kerr Smith remembered their death-defying experience on a jet ski.
The two told People Magazine at 90s Con in Hartford this week, “A couple of the guys on the crew had boats, and you know we had the guest stars come in, and the writers come in every episode, and we would take them out on the water on the weekends,”
Smith, who played Jack McPhee, initially recalled, “We’d stop and eat crab in the morning. And we’d fill up the boats with whatever we needed. We would barbecue out on the island. We all had jet skis.”
He remembers that hazardous event and says, “I’m surprised I didn’t kill myself!”
The actor explained, “I don’t know if you guys know how the intercostal waterway works down in Wilmington, but there’s a lot of grassy areas, and when the tide is higher, it becomes a race course. When the tides lower, it’s all mud.
Added: “So, I used to go back there and get this thing up to 70 miles an hour on the water. And I remember one time, I hit a sandbar, flew 100 feet over the handlebars, and made some waves.”
Dawson Leary’s character forced Van Der Beek to perform some risky tricks on the water. Although Wilmington has “hurricanes every year,” he said he still tries to catch some waves.
“What I [would] do is book the first flight out the next morning, and I would get on my jet ski and ride the hurricane waves,” he said.
“When you rode the back of the toward shore, the way the wave was going, it was an optical illusion because you couldn’t see the shoreline, but you were convinced you were going up and up and up and up. By the time the wave broke. I was convinced I was 200 feet in the air.”
Through clever tactics, the scheming certainly got him into “trouble” at times, which he recalled saying that they would “hit the back jet on the ground” and “break the prop,” causing him to be “pulled up.”
The film Dawson’s Creek, created by Williamson, ran from 1998 to 2003. The film stars Katie Holmes, Mary Margaret Humes, Michelle Williams, John Wesley Shipp, Joshua Jackson, Mary Beth Peil, Busy Phillips, Nina Repetta, and Meredith Monroe.