itstargetnews
James Van Der Beek, best known to many as Dawson Leery from his breakout role in drama in the late ’90s Dawson’s Creek, died at the age of 48 on Wednesday. Although to many he will forever be Dawson, an aspiring teen film director, Van Der Beek, who is battling colorectal cancer, has built an impressive, diverse career in the entertainment industry.
In his last on-screen role, the actor played Dean Wilson, the school district superintendent and mayoral candidate in Elle, the Legally Blonde prequel series set to premiere on Main Video on July 1. Here’s a look back at seven of Van Der Beek’s best roles.
Two movies, CSI: Cyber, in which he plays FBI Special Agent Elijah Mundo, and Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23, in which Van Der Beek plays a fictional version of himself, are currently unavailable to stream anywhere.
read in addition: These Netflix Movies Star A-List Actors, but They’ve Probably Never Seen You
Dawson’s Creek is the primetime soap opera that made James Van Der Beek a household name. The series, which ran for six seasons from 1998-2003, featured a cast of young talent, including Katie Holmes, Michelle Williams and Joshua Jackson. The show follows Dawson Leery, an aspiring filmmaker, and his friends as they face the many challenges of transitioning from adolescence to adulthood.
This 1999 film was the title that really helped launch his career. Varsity Blues follows underdog football player Jonathan “Mox” Moxon (Van Der Beek), who ends up being called up to replace his high school football team’s star quarterback (played by Paul Walker). Now he must deal with this new responsibility — to the team and his city — and the intense pressures that come with it.
James Van Der Beek made several cameo appearances throughout his career. In 2001’s Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, he appeared as himself alongside Jason Biggs, dressed as Jay opposite Biggs as Bob. Sorta. Things got a little meta when it was revealed that the two actors were shooting a movie based on Bluntman and Chronic, the fictional superhero alter egos of the movie’s titular slackers.
It is clear by his choice of roles that there is more to Van Der Beek than the work he did in Dawson’s Creek. 2002’s The Rules of Attraction is a good example of the actor’s range and need to distance himself from the role that made him a star. The movie, based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis, stars Van Der Beek as Sean Bateman (the younger brother of American Psycho’s Patrick Bateman) and follows him and his friends as they do drugs, have sex and navigate the hedonistic, privileged college life of the 1980s.
Van Der Beek has taken many creative turns in his career. One of his most underrated roles came in 2017 when he played a fictional version of Diplo, the world famous DJ and music producer. The short-lived comedy was co-created by Van Der Beek and executive-produced by Diplo, and tells a variety of funny, sometimes outlandish, life lessons through the eyes of the prolific DJ.
James Van Der Beek played Matt, a powerful Donald Trump-like character, in the first season of Ryan Murphy’s ’80s-’90s-set drama Pose. The series, which runs from 2018-2021, explores the decade’s underground trans ballroom scene, featuring prominent white actors like Van Der Beek in supporting roles to help increase trans representation on the show. For an actor who has cultivated a reputation as a kind and sincere family man, he is very good at playing this unwilling man.
Van Der Beek can be heard in Castle in the Sky, the 1986 Studio Ghibli classic directed by Hayao Miyazaki. She was not in the original Japanese version, but took on a voice role when the movie was later dubbed into English by Disney in 2003. The movie is about a girl named Sheeta who falls from the sky with a mysterious amulet. He embarks on an adventure with a boy named Pazu to discover his lineage and connection to a floating castle in the sky. James Van Der Beek provides the voice of Pazu. Anna Paquin, Cloris Leachman and Mark Hamill also star.
