Joshua Jackson Reveals the Truth Behind THAT Dawson's Creek Basketball Clip Going Viral

Most social media users over 30 likely have at least a passing awareness of Dawson's Creek, the late '90s/early 2000s staple that made James Van Der Beek, Joshua Jackson, Katie Holmes, and Michelle Williams stars. The series, which also starred Chad Michael Murray and Busy Phillips, was one of the buzziest shows of its era, and helped make writer and producer Greg Berlanti into a force to be reckoned with. For some younger viewers, though, their first look at actual footage from the series has come recently, when an old clip of Van Der Beek and Jackson started going viral on social media.

Jackson admitted that his initial response to going viral was fear -- wondering what had happened that, randomly, he was suddenly the talk of social media. That's in part because all he was told at first was that he was trending on Twitter, with no additional context. After seeing what had gone viral, though, Jackson said he was really entertained by the response.

"You know Twitter has its ups and downs, but one of the things I love about Twitter is -- man, people get into it," Jackson told The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. "So when I did finally get back to my trailer nd realized I hadn't screwed up, I wasn't dead, and my career wasn't over -- all good things -- there's like a forensic analysis of this 25-year-old TV show. 'It was CG,' people are going frame-by-frame, 'Well, you can see he dodged the ball at the wrong time, so the ball's not...' This was just a beach ball, painted to look like a basketball, that got bounced off of my face."

You can see the clip below.

He acknowledged that takes away a little of the TV magic, but seemed pretty entertained by the whole thing. 

Jackson is set to appear in Paramount+'s upcoming adaptation of Fatal Attraction, the '80s hit that originally starred Michael Douglas and Glenn Close.

Paramount+ describes the new series, "Joshua Jackson will star as Dan Gallagher, the object of his lover's (Lizzy Caplan) obsession after a brief affair. A deep-dive reimagining of the classic psychosexual thriller and '80s cultural touchstone, the new series will explore fatal attraction and the timeless themes of marriage and infidelity through the lens of modern attitudes towards strong women, personality disorders, and coercive control."

The series will drop on Paramount+ on April 30.