‘Dancing With the Stars’: Michelle Williams Had No Idea James Van Der Beek Was on the Show

James Van Der Beek is currently competing on Season 28 of Dancing With the Stars, but his former Dawson’s Creek co-star Michelle Williams wasn’t exactly up on the news. Williams attended the Emmy Awards on Sunday with best friend Busy Philipps when she was asked about Van Der Beek’s new venture by Entertainment Tonight.

“He’s on Dancing With the Stars. Did you not know that?” Philipps asked her friend, to which Williams replied, “No!”

“OK, I should have told you,” Philipps admitted, adding that she has “of course seen James dance.”

Not only is Van Der Beek competing on DWTS, he’s currently one of the frontrunners in the competition, having impressed the judges with his first two dances with partner Emma Slater. “He’s killing it. And I want him to win,” Philipps said of her friend. Williams exclaimed, “I can’t wait to see this!”

“I have to say something. Michelle doesn’t — she truly is a person who doesn’t have a television,” Philipps revealed. “You know how people say that and you’re like, ‘Yeah, you do’…”

“We had to get it working tonight so that my daughter could watch the Emmys,” Williams added, referencing her 13-year-old daughter, Matilda.

At the Emmys, Williams was awarded Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series for her work in Fosse/Verdon and used her acceptance speech to advocate for equal pay for women of color.

“I see this as an acknowledgement of what is possible when a woman is trusted to discern her own needs, feels safe enough to voice them, and respected enough that they’ll be heard,” she began. “When I asked for my dance classes, I heard ‘yes.’ When I asked for more voice lessons, I heard ‘yes.’ A different wig, a pair of teeth not made out of rubber, ‘yes.’ All these things, they require effort and they cost more money, but my bosses never presumed to know better than I did about what I needed to do my job and to honor Gwen Verdon. Thank you, FX and to Fox 21 Studios, for supporting me completely and paying me equally.”

“Next time a woman, and especially a woman of color, because she stands to make 52 cents on the dollar compared to her white male counterpart, tells you what she needs in order to do her job, listen to her,” she continued. “Believe her, because one day she might stand in front of you and say ‘thank you’ for allowing her to succeed because of her workplace environment, not in spite of it.”

Photo Credit: Getty / Valerie Macon