Beyond the 'Creek'

KATIE HOLMES
After taking time off to, oh, marry Tom Cruise, have daughter Suri, and become a tabloid staple, onetime tomboy Joey is back in action. Holmes is filming the comedy Mad Money with Queen Latifah, in which they play Federal Reserve employees plotting an inside job.

JAMES VAN DER BEEK
A TV series comeback was blocked after ABC sacked his Football Wives pilot, but the former Dawson has other gigs on his game plan: He'll portray a scientist in the Sci Fi Channel movie Eye of the Beast and a screenwriter in the thriller Final Draft.

MICHELLE WILLIAMS
Troubled Jen finally found success. Up next for Oscar nominee Williams: starring as Edie Sedgwick in the Bob Dylan biopic I'm Not There (out Sept. 21) and as Ewan McGregor's paramour in both the forthcoming thriller The Tourist and the romance Incendiary.

JOSHUA JACKSON
Has the wisecracking Pacey matured? We'll say! Jackson will take on the role of a protest-group leader in the big-screen Battle in Seattle (out in December), written and directed by costar Charlize Theron's boyfriend, Stuart Townsend.