James Van Der Beek was an early teen crush for many, thanks to Dawson’s Creek and Varsity Blues. But one enduring theme of his career from the beginning was his ability to riff on his own celebrity, having more fun with his own image than anyone else might have dared.
That playfulness had a direct inspiration point: In a 2017 Indiewire interview, Van Der Beek revealed that his passion for these kinds of roles was rooted in his love for a ’90s meta classic. “Being John Malkovich, to me, was the reason to be famous; to get to do something like that,” he said then. “Watching what John Malkovich did in that, I thought, ‘That is the coolest fucking thing I’ve ever seen a famous person do.’”
One of Van Der Beek’s earliest meta moments came in 2000’s Scary Movie — a quick cameo riffing on Dawson Leery’s penchant for climbing through bedroom windows. He also played himself in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back alongside Jason Biggs, as the two teen icons of the era were cast as knock-off versions of Kevin Smith’s iconic characters.
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Later in the 2000s, Van Der Beek made several indies and numerous TV guest star appearances, with his biggest role of this era being the 2002 adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s The Rules of Attraction, in which he played Sean Bateman (younger brother of Patrick). The turning point for his career ended up coming not through a film or TV appearance, but through a comedy website.
In 2011, Van Der Beek collaborated with Funny or Die on “VanDerWeek,” a week of content largely inspired by the rising popularity of the “Dawson crying” meme. The Tumblr blog Jamesvandermemes.com was populated with dozens of new reaction GIFs for all occasions (now preserved by the Internet Archive), and Van Der Beek filmed several sketches for the comedy platform, still available on YouTube.
It was “VanDerWeek” (or “Van Der Week”) which led to Van Der Beek getting offered a series regular role on the cult favorite ABC comedy Don’t Trust the B in Apartment 23. “When they asked to meet with me on [‘Don’t Trust the B’], it was as a direct result of what I had done with Funny or Die,” he told Indiewire in 2017. “The call came in [and] it’s Nahnatchka Khan, it’s Kristen Ritter, it’s Fox, it’s all these amazing people. I was like, ‘What’s the catch?’ They said, ‘Well, they want you to play yourself.’”
The James featured on the show was single and fancy-free, a clear distinction from real life: Van Der Beek married Kimberly Brook in 2010, and is survived by her and their six children. In a way, that set him free, as for two seasons, Van Der Beek gleefully played with his own image as a self-important star with a good heart but less than discerning taste in movie projects and product endorsements. It was a deliciously weird portrait, a performance that belongs in the pantheon of self-parody.
Van Der Beek would play himself again in 2019’s Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, but his most meta role following Don’t Trust the B was really the comedy series What Would Diplo Do?. He wasn’t playing himself in the series originally produced by Viceland (and streaming now on Tubi), but the same passion for exploding the concept of celebrity endures in those five episodes. Notably, he not only starred in the series (inspired by a viral video he did to promote Diplo’s Mad Decent Block Party) but served as writer and showrunner.
Ultimately, he came to be believe that “some of the best jobs I’ve had and some of the best directors I’ve gotten to work with happened after I started just taking the piss out of myself,” adding that when his meta journey began, the thought in the back of his head was “Well, if Malkovich is brave enough to do that, you can certainly assassinate a little bit of your ego to do this.”
It’s perhaps the same attitude that pushed him to be so public about his battle with cancer, including his appearance in the 2024 special The Real Full Monty, in which he and other stars including Anthony Anderson and Taye Diggs became strippers to raise awareness for early screenings and money for research. His passing at the age of 48 is devastating to his family, friends, and fans, but it remains wonderful to recall the joy he brought to embracing his identity.
Life may be way too short sometimes, but as he once said, “Just go for what’s interesting, go for what’s funny. If you let crazy win every once in a while, you might have a lot more fun.”
