James Van Der Beek

James Van Der Beek earned my lasting affection not for Dawson's Creek itself, but for what he did with its shadow. Plenty of teen idols spend decades running from their defining role; he turned around and parodied himself with genuine wit in Apartment 23, which takes both humility and craft. His passing in February 2026 hit harder than I expected, because he was the face of a very specific late-nineties adolescence. I admire actors who can hold nostalgia in one hand and self-awareness in the other, and he managed that balancing act more gracefully than almost anyone of his generation.

Name (English)

James Van Der Beek

Name (Japanese)

ジェームズ・ヴァン・ダー・ビーク

Reading

じぇーむず・ゔぁん・だー・びーく

Born

March 8, 1977 (age 49)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Pisces / Snake

Origin

Cheshire, Connecticut, United States

Occupation

actor / stage actor / television actor / film actor / screenwriter

University

Drew University

Motto

Private

• Official sitehttp://vanderbeek.com/
• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/vanderjames/
• Xhttps://x.com/vanderjames
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%82%B8%E3%82%A7%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A0%E3%82%BA%E3%83%BB%E3%83%B4%E3%82%A1%E3%83%B3%E3%83%BB%E3%83%80%E3%83%BC%E3%83%BB%E3%83%93%E3%83%BC%E3%82%AF

Tags

• Connecticut
• actor
• stage actor
• television actor

Last updated

2026-06-11

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.