Photo: Lionel Hahn/Getty

Joshua Jackson attends the 2023 Vanity Fair Oscar Party Hosted By Radhika Jones at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on March 12, 2023 in Beverly Hills, California.

Joshua Jacksonis opening up about once grappling with his success — and paycheck — during his years onDawson’s Creek.

When the actor, 44, starred as Pacey Witter in six seasons of the teen drama, he struggled with feeling worthy of his skyrocketing position.

“I wouldn’t want to go back to my twenties again, that amount of angst. I would make more money doing four episodes ofDawson’s Creekthan most of my friends' parents made in a year,” he toldThe Timesin a new interview on Sunday as he describing his forties as his “best decade” in life.

“That was the center of my imposter syndrome: ‘You’re trying to set me up to be a role model to kids, and I definitely am not, and you’re paying me all this money that I don’t deserve.'”

Dawson’s Creek , Joshua Jackson

Jackson, who landed the role of Pacey at the age of 19, also revealed that he’s still in touch with the core cast from the WB show and they even have a WhatsApp group.

“It doesn’t get a lot of use but every once in a while someone will crop up,” he continued to the British publication. “[In January] we passed the 25th anniversary [of the show] so there was a flurry of texts. It really centers around, ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe that we all went through that thing together.’ It’s obviously such a formative point in all our lives.”

As well as Jackson’s career, the show also launched the careers of five-time Oscar nomineeMichelle WilliamsandKatie Holmes, whom Jackson dated in real life and shared, “We were kids, so it was a full-on stars-moon-sky romance!”

According to Jackson, “I think the secret to the show was that it didn’t talk to young people like they’re stupid. Those characters and what they were going through felt real. We were trying to tell stories about those moments in your life and we were close enough to it in our own ages that we deeply remembered what that angst was.”

The Dawson’s Creek cast.Frank Ockenfels/Warner Bros Tv/Kobal/Shutterstock

Michelle Williams, James Van Der Beek, Joshua Jackson, Katie Holmes Dawson’s Creek - 1998

“This business can consume you, but I’ve always been conscious that although I love what I do for a living, I don’t like it all the time,” said Jackson, whomarriedBritish actressJodie Turner-Smithin 2019. “I love this dream of building this life with my wife and seeing her achieve her goals. In my twenties it was, ‘Maybe I’ll feel like this when I get here.’ At this point in my life I’m already here.”

Jackson and wife Turner-Smith, 36, are parents to a3-year-old daughtercalled Janie, who Jackson has previously told PEOPLE is"very opinionated."

“The work [of being a parent] is constant because she’s constantly a new version of herself,” he told PEOPLE in October of first-time fatherhood. “So I think [you have to be] open to the fact that you have to rediscover your child all the time.”

“But the greatest piece of it right now is she’s so hyper-verbal, and she’s very, very opinionated,” the actor continued. “And I’m just enjoying the ability to be in that conversation with her.”

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Dawson’s Creekcan be streamed in full on Amazon Prime Video.

source: people.com