PROFILE: James Van Der Beek
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A year ago James Van Der Beek couldn't score a Mentos commercial. Today he's one of Hollywood's most sought-after hot young actors. That's what starring in a hit TV series like the WB's Dawson's Creek can do for youPlaying the title character, Dawson Leery, in creator Kevin Williamson's small-screen bonanza (Williamson is also the writer of big-screen bonanzas like Scream, Scream 2 and I_ Know What You Did Last Summer_) pulled Van Der Beek from the cattle call of cheesy auditions, turned him into a TV sensation, and subjected him to an inordinate amount of attention from female fans who do things like send him love notes saturated with wet kisses. It also won him a starring role opposite Jon Voight in this month's big-screen comedy Varsity Blues.
At 21, Van Der Beek might have been thoroughly unnerved by the frantic change in his fortunes. But he's been up and down a few different times since the day his mother drove him into New York City from Connecticut to get an agent and a manager. He was 15 years old at the time. "For a year and a half I traveled into the city by train every week and I didn't get a thing, not a thing," confesses Van Der Beek. "I don't know how I did it. I think I took it all too seriously--I'd try to get excited about a sports drink, I'd try my damnedest. But I couldn't do it. I bet if I disguised myself and went in today, I'd still get nothing."
Tired of the commercial audition circuit, Van Der Beek took a stab at theater and liked it. At 16 he got his first break, snagging the lead in an off-Broadway Edward Albee play, a part a young actor named Edward Norton had also vied for. And then, despite being basically a pleasant, well-mannered theater nerd, Van Der Beek caught the eye of Hollywood filmmakers who were looking for a classic jock type to play the bully in a film called Angus. "It was one of the best scripts I had ever read," he says, "but the story was about a fat guy with a gay father and [the studio] panicked. They decided to cut it for a specific demographic and in the process they castrated it. And they took out every shot where I wasn't snarling." Angus failed at the box office and Van Der Beek took a two-year break from the business. When he came back he hired a new agent and assumed a new, easier-going attitude that served him well at auditions. He immediately landed a part on Dawson's Creek.
Now, three years after Angus, Van Der Beek finds himself back on the big screen in another high school movie, only this time he's the star and it's a comedy. Varsity Blues focuses on the relationship between a second-string varsity quarterback and his dictatorial coach, played by Jon Voight. Besides giving Van Der Beek a formidable actor to play against, Varsity Blues also presented him with the opportunity to do his first sex scene. "The secret to doing sex scenes is tequila," he confesses. "Not a lot, just enough. Everybody always talks about how sex scenes are terrible, but they can be fun, especially if it's not just two people in a room making out. In Varsity Blues we talk a lot, so it's funny."
Why did Van Der Beek decide on Varsity Blues as his first Dawson's Creek hiatus gig? "I wanted to play a character that was as far from Dawson as I could get," he says. "I like the story, too--the whole thing's about standing up to authority." And then there's the fact that it isn't a horror movie. "I would do a Kevin Williamson movie because I respect him, I think he's great. But otherwise those movies are all the same. As my hiatus from Dawson's drew closer, I became scared that I'd actually have to take one, because there wasn't much else around. Then I found Varsity Blues."
Once he secures a footing as a film actor, can Van Der Beek see going for a tough, serious role of the kind his old competitor Edward Norton might play? "I actually went up against him for Primal Fear" he says. "I blew my callback audition because I was nervous. Every young actor wanted that role and I remember thinking, 'Man, I'm going to be really jealous of whoever gets it.' Then I heard Ed got it, and I was OK with that." Van Der Beek laughs, adding, "I'd be very flattered to think that anyone thought Edward and I were competing for anything now."
Van Der Beek is being careful with his acting choices for a good reason--he's aware that Hollywood's career graveyards are brimming with the corpses of good-looking actors who couldn't hack it in the big time. "I was talking to Jon Voight about that recently," he says. "I was thinking about it in terms of screen size and viewers going to the bathroom or making dinner while they're watching. But Jon's point was that in television, you have hours of back story, so you can afford to take it easy and add subtle things. In a film you have only two hours to develop a character and change that character. The stakes are higher."
Van Der Beek also has his own ideas about how to avoid the TV teen idol trap. "The problem with teen idols is they grow up," he says. "The trick is to prove you're an actor in the process. I'm trying to establish myself as an actor as opposed to a novelty, but I can use the novelty-item status to get opportunities to act. I So, I've got an opportunity here. I don't know if it'll work." Van Der Beek's sudden TV-star status hasn't compromised his ability to make a sober assessment of his place in the Industry. "I honestly can't imagine that anyone's going to go to a movie because I'm in it," he declares.
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Michael Atkinson interviewed Peter Berg for the November 98 issue of Movieline.