THE WATERFRONT TRUE STORY: THE REAL EVENTS THAT INSPIRED NETFLIX DRAMA

Dip your toe into The Waterfront if you dare and you will discover as much about its creator as the Buckley family who star in the show.

Kevin Williamson is the writer behind the new Netflix series and he has been candid about the inspiration behind this story of a fictional family and their crumbling fishing empire.

He said: “”It’s me looking back on my life growing up.

“It’s reflection, it’s nostalgic, it’s a little bit of a memory piece.

“But it’s also set in today’s world, it’s current, and it’s a story about a broken family trying to fix themselves and not really knowing how.” 

We take a look at the origin of the series, which premiered on the streaming service on Thursday 19 June.

Is The Waterfront based on a true story?

Although not entirely autobiographical, The Waterfront is inspired by the family life of the show’s creator Kevin Williamson.

The actor and screenwriter grew up in North Carolina and is the son of a fisherman.

Like the fictional Buckley family, Williamson’s father was also drawn into the world of drugs trafficking when his family faced financial difficulties.

But the fictional Buckley’s trajectory in The Waterfront is not quite the same as that of the Williamson family.

This is not the first time the writer has drawn on his past to create a show.

His highly successful 1990’s teen drama Dawson’s Creek was also, in part, based on his teenage years living in North Carolina.

Dawson’s Creek “was me growing up in a small town on the creek in North Carolina,” he told Netflix’s Tudum.

He described The Waterfront as “a little more adult Kevin”.

What has Kevin Williamson said about The Waterfront?

Williamson has detailed how The Waterfront is his first foray into chronicling the lives of commercial fisherman but also his most personal story yet.

He told Tudum: “We’ve never really seen a story about the commercial fisherman told before in any sort of dramatic way in a family drama.”

It’s something the 60-year-old has first-hand experience of as he revealed he comes “from a long line of fishermen” who struggled with economic hardship in the 1980s as the industry changed rapidly.

He said: “The fishing industry sort of upturned in the ’80s — it all started to go away, and my dad couldn’t feed his family.

“So someone came along and said, ‘Hey, if you do this one thing, you can make all this money.’

“And it was hard to say no to.”

According to Williamson, his father became a runner for a time, transporting drugs on his trolley.

“My dad — a very, very good man — got tempted to do some things that weren’t so legal and got in some trouble”, he said, “[But] it put food on the table, helped me go to college.” 

It’s not the first time Williamson has taken events from his family’s past to feed into his writing.

Dawson’s Creek was also a reflection of his teen years in North Carolina and revealed some personal details about his father.

“That was one side of my autobiographical story,” he said. “This is another part of me.

“I always wanted to tell it.

“If anyone’s a fan of Dawson’s Creek, in the very first episode, Joey Potter [Katie Holmes] says, ‘My dad’s in prison for conspiracy to traffic marijuana in excess of 20,000 pounds.’

“That was exactly my dad’s charge — that’s why he went to prison.

“He got caught, he served his time, he got out, and I graduated.”

The character of Harlan Buckley, the head of the fishing family in The Waterfront, is derived from Williamson’s father.

“I had my dad in my head”, said Williamson, ” I was like, ‘How do you cast Superman?’ “

And the tenacious Belle Buckley is also loosely based on his own mother.

“A lot of families have that strong matriarch at the center that keeps everything floating,” he said, “Mine kept everything going.

“I got to school and graduated college because of the fire she lit under my butt.”  

Williamson’s family are not the only part of his background that helped shape the new drama.

His home turf of North Carolina is also the setting for The Waterfront. 

“I love North Carolina; I would shoot everything here if I could,” he said, “It’s gorgeous, people come here because it’s just such a coastal destination.

“I can’t take credit for that. I can take credit for being inspired by it.”

2025-06-19T11:21:26Z