James Van Der Beek Uses Legally Blonde Prequel to Escape Cancer Battle
I’m Sage Matthews, and as I scroll through another dawn’s worth of bad news, this latest celebrity update confirms what we already suspected – misery loves company. Of course this happened.
James Van Der Beek has been open about the one thing that lets him forget his stage 3 colorectal cancer for a moment: work. In an interview with Today published on July 30, the Dawson’s Creek star admitted that on the set of the Legally Blonde prequel series Elle, “cancer doesn’t exist between action and cut.” At 48, Van Der Beek finds himself diving into scenes, running lines, and hanging with a talented cast so he can breathe without chemo on his mind.
Diagnosed in 2023 and making the news public in early 2024, Van Der Beek describes his acting gigs as welcome interruptions. “It was fun to drop in and just have a blast because it’s such a great cast, a great production, and everybody out there is really talented,” he told Today. He no longer sees episodes and film shoots as work but as mini escapes from his real full-time job – managing his health.
The shift in priorities is dramatic. Between infusions, scans, and check-ups, “rest” has become a medical directive. Van Der Beek admits he must “take things a little bit more slowly and prioritizing rest and really allowing that to be the job.” It’s a mindset he expects to maintain indefinitely, acknowledging, “It’s a process. It’ll probably be a process for the rest of my life.”
At home, the Varsity Blues alum leans on family. He and wife Kimberly juggle six children – Olivia, 14, Joshua, 13, Annabel, 11, Emilia, 9, Gwendolyn, 7, and Jeremiah, 3 – while he balances on-set hours with doctor’s orders. Off-camera, he’s surrounded by old Dawson’s Creek pals like Katie Holmes, Joshua Jackson, Michelle Williams, and Busy Philipps. In March, Busy told Us Weekly that hearing from James and sending “every ounce of good wishes and prayers” has been their collective mission.
It’s a rare glimpse of solidarity in a world that often trades in sensationalism. Yet even in this uplifting circle, the newsroom cynic in me wonders if any of us would bother logging back on for feel-good stories if the darkness weren’t so persistent.
But for Van Der Beek, the mood on set is a lifeline. He’s clinging to the idea that nine words on a script page can mean nine minutes of normalcy. And right now, that counts for a lot.
Witty Closing Remark: At this point, should we even pretend to be surprised?
Sources: Celebrity Storm and Today, Us Weekly, E! News
Attribution: Creative Commons Licensed
