Michelle Williams is thankful social media wasn’t around when she was in ‘Dawson’s Creek’.
The 36-year-old actress worked on the drama series for five years from 1998 and admits she and her co-stars – which included Joshua Jackson, Katie Holmes, James Van Der Beek and her best friend Busy Phillips – were able to "make mistakes and bounce of the walls" in a "sleepy" town away from the public eye.
She said: "I met my best friend on that show. She was so cool and so tough then. She’s still cool and tough, but oh my God, I looked up to hr so much.
"And I had to grow up. It was in North Carolina, and that was a nice place to be young. It was sleepy and safe – before social media.
"We weren’t always perfectly behaved, but we got away with it because there were some caring adults looking out for us and nobody was, you know, tweeting about what we did or where we went.
"That was a good place to make mistakes and bounce off the walls, but land safely."
Michelle admits she used to take it personally when people were mean about her wild and misunderstood character, Jen Lindley.
She told Total Film magazine: "Nobody liked poor Jen. It really hurt my feelings so badly.
"There were all these websites like, ‘I hate Jen’ and ‘Jen is Stupid and Whorish’.
"It’s like, she’s just a messed-up teenage girl. So I’m glad that, with a little hindsight, she comes through.
"It was a very strange thing to play somebody when you’re a teenager and your identity is forming and their identity is one that people aren’t responding favourably to. It’s pretty cruel on your self esteem."
Michelle Williams grateful she grew up away from social media
