James Van Der Beek, better known as Dawson Leery for his notable role in the late 90s drama Dawson’s Creek, died Wednesday at the age of 48. Although to many he will forever be Dawson, Van Der Beek, an aspiring teen film director who battled colorectal cancer, has built an impressive and varied career in the entertainment industry.
In his last on-screen role, the actor played school district superintendent and mayoral candidate Dean Wilson in She, the Legally blonde the prequel series is set to premiere on Main video July 1st. A look back at seven of Van Der Beek’s best roles.
Two shows, 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 fictionalized version of himself, are not currently available to stream anywhere.
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Dawson’s Creek is the prime-time soap opera that made James Van Der Beek a household name. The series, which ran for six seasons from 1998 to 2003, featured a cast of young talent, including Katie Holmes, Michelle Williams and Joshua Jackson. The show followed Dawson Leery, an aspiring filmmaker, and his friends as they faced the many challenges of transitioning from adolescence to adulthood.
This 1999 film is 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 the star quarterback of his high school football team (played by Paul Walker). He must now face this new responsibility – to the team and to his city – and the intense pressures that come with it.
James Van Der Beek has made numerous appearances throughout his career. In 2001’s Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back, he appears as himself alongside Jason Biggs, dressed as Jay opposite Biggs as Bob. Somehow. Things get a little meta when it’s revealed that the two actors are making a movie based on Bluntman and Chronic, the fictional superhero alter egos of the film’s titular slackers.
It was clear through his choice of roles that Van Der Beek was so much more than the work he did on Dawson’s Creek. 2002’s Rules of Attraction is a great example of the actor’s diversity and the need to distance himself from the role that made him a star. The film, 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 take drugs, have sex, and navigate the hedonistic, privileged college life of the 1980s.
Van Der Beek has taken many creative initiatives throughout his career. One of his most underrated roles came in 2017, when he played a fictionalized version of Diplo, the world-famous DJ and music producer. The short-lived comedy was co-created by Van Der Beek and produced by Diplo, and tells a variety of humorous, sometimes bizarre 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 and ’90s drama Pose. The series, which ran from 2018 to 2021, explored the decade’s underground trans ballroom scene, featuring prominent white actors like Van Der Beek in supporting roles to help boost the show’s trans representation. For an actor who cultivated a reputation as a kind and serious family man, he really excelled in the role of this unlikeable guy.
Van Der Beek can be heard in Castle in the Sky, the 1986 Studio Ghibli classic directed by Hayao Miyazaki. He is not in the original Japanese version, but he took on a voice role when the film was later dubbed into English by Disney in 2003. The film is about a girl named Sheeta who falls from the sky with a mysterious amulet. She embarks on an adventure with a boy named Pazu to discover his lineage and his connection to a floating castle in the sky. James Van Der Beek provided the voice of Pazu. Anna Paquin, Cloris Leachman and Mark Hamill also star.