“Our beloved James David Van Der Beek passed peacefully this morning. He met his last days with courage, faith and grace. There is much to share about his dreams, love for humanity and the sacredness of time. The days will come,” said one. statement of the actor’s family posted on Instagram. “At this time we ask for peaceful privacy as we mourn our loving husband, father, son, brother and friend.”

Van Der Beek revealed in 2024 that he was treated colorectal cancer.

Van Der Beek made a surprise video appearance in September at a “Dawson’s Creek” reunion charity event in New York City after previously dropping out due to illness.

He appeared onstage at the Richard Rodgers Theater during a live reading of the show’s pilot episode to benefit F Cancer and Van Der Beek. Lin-Manuel Miranda subbed for him on stage.

“Thank you to every person here,” Van Der Beek said.

Till tied in ‘Dawson’s Creek’

A one-time theater kid, Van Der Beek would star in the movie “Varsity Blues” and on TV in “CSI: Cyber” as FBI Special Agent Elijah Mundo, but will forever be connected to “Dawson’s Creek,” which ran from 1998 to 2003 on The WB.

The series follows a group of high school friends as they learn about love, create true friendships and find their footing in life. Van Der Beek, over 20, plays 15-year-old Dawson Leery, who aspires to become a director of the quality of Steven Spielberg.

With Paula Cole’s “I Don’t Want To Wait” as its moody theme song, “Dawson’s Creek” helped define The WB as a haven for teenagers and young adults with its hyper-articulate dialogue and frank talk about sexuality. And it became the household names of Van Der Beek, Katie Holmes, Michelle Williams and Joshua Jackson.

“While James’ legacy will always live on, this is a great loss not only to your family but to the world,” Sarah Michelle Gellar wrote his widow on Instagram. Katharine McPhee Foster added: “This is more than devastating news.” Others who posted messages of condolence were Jenna Dewan and Olivia Munn.

The show gets into trouble when one of the teenagers starts a racy affair with a 20-year-old teacher and when Holmes’ character climbs through Dawson’s bedroom window and they hold each other. Racier shows like “Euphoria” and “Sex Education” owe a debt to “Dawson’s Creek.”

Van Der Beek sometimes struggled to break out from under the show’s shadow but eventually leaned into competing with himself, such as videos on Funny Or Die and the Kesha’s “Blow” music video, which includes his laser gun battle with pop stars in a nightclub and dead unicorns.

“It’s hard to compete with something that is the cultural phenomenon that is ‘Dawson’s Creek,'” he told Vulture in 2013. “It’s been running for a long time. That’s a lot of time playing a character in front of people. So naturally they associate you with that.”

A famous GIF and ‘Varsity Blues’

More than a decade after the show went off the air, a scene at the end of the show’s third season has become a GIF. Dawson watches as his soul mate begins a love affair with his best friend and cries.

“It wasn’t scripted that I was supposed to cry; it was just one of those things where it was a magical moment and it just happened in the scene,” Van Der Beek told Vanity Fair. He seemed exasperated when he told the Los Angeles Times: “Suddenly, six years of work has been added to a seven-second clip on loop.” (Van Der Beek himself recreated the GIF in 2011 for Funny or Die and gave it a second life.)

While still in “Dawson’s Creek,” Van Der Beek hosted “Saturday Night Live” – ​​the musical guest was Everlast – and got a plumb role in “Varsity Blues,” playing a high school second-string quarterback who jumps into the offense when the star suffers an injury.

Van Der Beek’s character, Mox, turns out not to be a football fanatic, prefers to read Kurt Vonnegut and longs for a college education that will allow him to escape the jock mentality of his hometown in Texas.

“I don’t want your life,” he yelled at one point. Critic Roger Ebert called her “convincing and likable.”

After ‘Dawson’s Creek’

Some of his projects after “Dawson’s Creek” included creating and playing Wesley “Diplo” Pentz, a dull but likable music producer in Viceland’s mockumentary satire, “What Would Diplo Do?” In 2019, he reached the semifinals of ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” and played a balding, out-of-shape ex-boyfriend on “How I Met Your Mother.”

“The more you laugh at yourself and don’t try to get any kind of respect, the more people seem to respect you,” he told Vanity Fair in 2011. “I’ve always been a clown trapped in a leading man’s body.”

Between 2003 and 2013, he appeared in shows like “Criminal Minds,” “One Tree Hill,” and “How I Met Your Mother.” He played himself with a crackpot intensity in the Krysten Ritter-led ABC drama “Don’t Trust the B— in Apartment 23,” and the short-lived “CSI” spinoff “CSI: Cyber” and “Friends with a Better Life” on CBS.

He also appeared in movies such as the 2001 Kevin Smith comedy “Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back” and the 2019 sequel, “Jay and Silent Bob Reboot.” He was in the Bret Easton Ellis adaptation of “The Rules of Attraction” in 2002 opposite Jessica Biel and Kate Bosworth.

In 2025, he opened as Griffin in “The Masked Singer,” after singing a cover of John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads” and Post Malone and Morgan Wallen’s “I Had Some Help.”

Early life as a theater kid

Van Der Beek, who grew up in Cheshire, Connecticut, began acting at age 13 after suffering a concussion playing football that kept him out of action for a year. He landed the role of Danny Zuko in his school production of “Grease.”

He stayed in the theater, landing on 16 in 1994 an off-Broadway role in “Finding the Sun” by Pulitzer Prize-winner Edward Albee and one of the sons in a revival of “Shenandoah” at the prestigious Goodspeed Opera House in his home state.

He got a scholarship to New Jersey’s Drew University but left school early when he was cast in “Dawson’s Creek.” In 2024, he returned to campus to accept an honorary degree for his “selfless service and exemplary commitment to Drew’s mission,” the university said.

Drew University President Hilary Link welcomed Van Der Beek with a famous quote from his “Dawson’s Creek” character: “The edge is fleeting,” he said, “but the heart lasts forever.

He is survived by his wife, Kimberly, and six children, Olivia, Joshua, Annabel, Emilia, Gwendolyn and Jeremiah.

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AP Music Writer Maria Sherman contributed to this report.