Katie Noelle Holmes is an American actress. She was born on December 18, 1978 in Toledo, Ohio. She is the youngest of five children born to Kathleen, a homemaker and philanthropist, and Martin Joseph Holmes Sr., an attorney who played basketball at Marquette University under coach Al McGuire. She has three sisters and one brother. Holmes was baptized a Roman Catholic and attended Christ the King Church in Toledo. At age 14, she began classes at a modeling school in Toledo which led her to the International Modeling and Talent Association (IMTA) Competition held in New York City in 1996. She graduated from the all-female Notre Dame Academy in Toledo. At St. John's Jesuit and St. Francis de Sales, nearby all-male high schools, Holmes appeared in school musicals, playing a waitress in Hello, Dolly! and Lola in Damn Yankees. She was accepted to Columbia University. Eventually, Holmes was signed to an agent after performing a monologue from To Kill a Mockingbird. An audition tape was sent to the casting director for the 1997 film The Ice Storm, directed by Ang Lee, and Holmes made her big-screen debut in the role of Libbets Casey in the film, opposite Kevin Kline and Sigourney Weaver. In January 1997, Holmes went to Los Angeles for pilot season, when producers cast and shoot new programs in the hopes of securing a spot on a network schedule. She was offered the lead in Buffy the Vampire Slayer but turned it down in order to finish high school. Columbia TriStar Television, producer of a new show named Dawson's Creek, asked her to come to Los Angeles to audition, but there was a conflict with play schedule in her high school. The producers permitted her to audition on videotape. Holmes read for the part of Joey Potter, the tomboy best friend of the title character Dawson, on a videotape shot in her basement, her mother reading Dawson's lines. Holmes won the part. While Dawson's Creek was met with mixed reviews, Holmes attained national attention and was soon on the covers of magazines such as Seventeen, TV Guide, and Rolling Stone. Holmes dated her Dawson's Creek co-star Joshua Jackson early in the show's run. During her time as a series regular on Dawson's Creek, Holmes's first leading role in a film came in 1998's Disturbing Behavior. Despite the fact that it received mixed reviews and was not a huge financial success, the actress won an MTV Movie Award for Best Breakthrough Performance for the role and also received a Saturn Award nomination for the part. In 1999, she played a disaffected supermarket clerk in Doug Liman's ensemble piece Go. The film received excellent reviews and made a profit, and Holmes herself was liked by critics. The same year, in Kevin Williamson's Teaching Mrs. Tingle, which he wrote and directed, Holmes played a straight-A student whose vindictive teacher (Helen Mirren) threatens to keep her from a desperately needed scholarship. Also in 1999, she had an uncredited cameo with Dawson's Creek co-star Joshua Jackson in Muppets from Space, which was filmed in Wilmington, where Dawson's Creek also filmed. Holmes was annually named by both the British and American editions of FHM magazine as one of the sexiest women in the world from 1999 onward.
The year 2000 saw Holmes feature in two film roles. The first was in Wonder Boys, directed by Curtis Hanson from the novel by Michael Chabon. Holmes had a small role (six and one-half minutes of screen time) as Hannah Green. Many leading critics at the time took favorable notice to Holmes in the film. Her second feature film during 2000 was The Gift, a Southern Gothic story directed by Sam Raimi. Holmes did her first nude scene for the film, in a scene where her character was about to be murdered. Holmes hosted Saturday Night Live on February 24, 2001, participating in a send-up of Dawson's Creek where she falls madly in love with Chris Kattan's Mr. Peepers character and singing "Big Spender" from Sweet Charity. Katie met actor Chris Klein in 2000. They were engaged in late 2003 but in early 2005 ended their relationship. In the 2002 film Abandon, written by Oscar winner Stephen Gaghan, Holmes plays a delusional, homicidal college student named "Katie". During the final season of Dawson's Creek, Holmes played the mistress of the public relations flack played by Colin Farrell in Phone Booth, which was both critically and financially successful. She also appeared as Robert Downey, Jr.'s nurse in The Singing Detective (2003). Dawson's Creek ended its run in 2003, and Holmes was the only actor to appear in all 128 episodes. Holmes's first starring role post-Dawson's Creek was in 2003's Pieces of April, a gritty comedy about a dysfunctional family on Thanksgiving. Many critics and audiences agreed that Holmes had given her best performance in the film as April. Holmes also received a Satellite Award for Best Actress for the role. On the November 9, 2003 episode, she was Punk'd by Ashton Kutcher, and the next year, she was the subject of an episode of the MTV program Diary. She was named one of People's "50 Most Beautiful People" in 2003; its sibling Teen People declared her one of the "25 Hottest Stars Under 25" that year as well. Holmes was a contender for the role of Christine Daaé in 2004's The Phantom of the Opera, but lost the role to Emmy Rossum. That year, she starred as the US President's daughter in First Daughter, which was originally slated to be released in January 2004 on the same day as Chasing Liberty, another film about a president's daughter, but was ultimately released in September 2004, to negative reviews and low ticket sales. In the 2005 film Batman Begins she played Rachel Dawes, an attorney in the Gotham City district attorney's office and the childhood sweetheart of the title character. She was nominated for a Golden Raspberry for "worst supporting actress" for the film. She also appeared in the film version of Christopher Buckley's satirical novel Thank You for Smoking about a tobacco lobbyist played by Aaron Eckhart, whom Holmes's character, a Washington reporter, seduces. The film ended up a success, even earning a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy.
Holmes began dating actor Tom Cruise in April 2005. Holmes, who was raised a Catholic, began studying Scientology shortly after the couple began dating. They got engaged in June 2005, only seven weeks after meeting. Also in 2005, Holmes had agreed to play in Shame on You, a biopic about the country singer Spade Cooley written and directed by Dennis Quaid, as the wife whom Cooley (played by Quaid) stomps to death. But the picture, set to shoot in New Orleans, Louisiana, was delayed by Hurricane Katrina, and Holmes dropped out due to her pregnancy. On November 18, 2006, Holmes and Cruise were married in a Scientologist ceremony at the 15th-century Odescalchi Castle in Bracciano, Italy. After her daughter, Suri Cruise, was born in April 2006, Holmes took a hiatus from her acting career until 2008. After speculation about Holmes reprising her role in The Dark Knight, the sequel to Batman Begins, it was finally confirmed that she would not appear. Her role was later recast with Maggie Gyllenhaal in her place. Instead, Holmes decided to star in the comedy Mad Money, opposite Diane Keaton and Queen Latifah in 2008. The film flopped. Returning to television in 2008, Holmes appeared in an episode of Eli Stone as Grace, a lawyer, and her singing and dancing was praised by Tim Stack of Entertainment Weekly. Holmes made her Broadway debut in the revival of Arthur Miller's All My Sons in October 2008. She opened to mixed reviews. In November 2008, it was confirmed that she would be the new face of the spring 2009 campaign for the high-end fashion line Miu Miu. In 2008, Holmes started a high fashion clothing line called Holmes & Yang with longtime stylist Jeanne Yang. In July 2009, Holmes, Nigel Lythgoe, Adam Shankman, and Carrie Ann Inaba announced the launch of a dance scholarship fund called the Dizzy Feet Foundation. In 2009, Holmes appeared in the National Memorial Day Concert on the Mall in Washington, D.C. in a dialogue with Dianne Wiest celebrating the life of an American veteran seriously wounded in Iraq, José Pequeño. In 2009, Holmes began filming a remake of the 1970s ABC telemovie Don't Be Afraid of the Dark; the film was released in August 2011. Also in 2011, Holmes played the role of Jackie Kennedy in the TV miniseries The Kennedys. In October 2011, she also portrayed "Slutty Pumpkin" (Naomi), in the TV show How I Met Your Mother, episode "The Slutty Pumpkin Returns". In 2012, Holmes appeared in Theresa Rebeck's new comedy Dead Accounts on Broadway. Holmes and Chace Crawford were reportedly cast as the leads in the romantic comedy Responsible Adults, to begin shooting in Los Angeles in "Fall 2011". In June 2011, Holmes received the Women in Film Max Mara Face of the Future Award. Beginning January 2011, she became the new face of Ann Taylor Spring 11 collection. Holmes & Yang presented their fashion line at New York Fashion Week for the first time in September 2012. Holmes acted as the face for the Bobbi Brown Cosmetics brand in spring 2013 and Holmes had her own capsule collection of color cosmetics in fall of that year. In the late 2000s, Holmes was known to holiday in Whistler.
On June 29, 2012, Holmes filed for divorce from Cruise in New York after five and a half years of marriage. Following the announcement, those close to Holmes stated that she believed she had reason to fear that Cruise would abduct Suri, and was also apprehensive of intimidation by the Church of Scientology. In July 2012, attorneys announced that the couple had signed a divorce settlement, and Holmes retained custody of Suri. Following her divorce from Cruise, Holmes returned to the Catholic Church. In 2013, she appeared in an advertising campaign for IRIS Jewelry. In January 2013, Holmes was announced as the brand ambassador and co-owner of Alterna Haircare. In 2015, Holmes joined the third season of Ray Donovan. Holmes directed a short 2015 documentary for ESPN about Olympic gymnast Nadia Comăneci entitled "Eternal Princess" that premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. She directed her first feature film in 2016, All We Had, starring herself, Stefania LaVie Owen, Luke Wilson, Richard Kind, Mark Consuelos, Judy Greer, and Eve Lindley. In 2017, Holmes starred in the heist comedy Logan Lucky, directed by Steven Soderbergh. The film received positive reviews, with many critics praising the cast's performances and Soderbergh's direction, and grossed $48 million worldwide. In 2018, she appeared in the satirical comedy Dear Dictator, opposite Michael Caine. The same year, she made a cameo in the movie Ocean's 8. In 2019, she played in the independent film Coda alongside Patrick Stewart. The movie is acclaimed by critics and received 3 out of 4 stars. In 2020, she starred in the movie Brahms: The Boy II. The film was theatrically released in the United States on February 21, 2020 and grossed $20 million worldwide against a production budget of $10 million. The same year, she was the main character in the movie The Secret: Dare to Dream, which was released in the United States through video on demand, and theatrically in several countries, on July 31, 2020, by Roadside Attractions and Gravitas Ventures, following the COVID-19 pandemic. In its debut weekend, The Secret: Dare to Dream was the top-rented film on FandangoNow, second at Apple TV, seventh on the iTunes Store, and 10th on Spectrum. Holmes dated chef Emilio Vitolo Jr from 2020 to 2021. In 2022, she wrote and directed her second film, a romantic drama named Alone Together, starring herself, Jim Sturgess, Derek Luke, Melissa Leo, Zosia Mamet, and Becky Ann Baker. It premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival on July 14, 2022, and was released in the United States on July 22, 2022 by Vertical Entertainment. She has appeared in advertisements for Garnier Lumia hair color, Coach leather goods, and clothing retailer Gap.