James Van Der Beek

RJ here, hanging out at the Four Seasons in LA at the Young Hollywood Studio with James Vanderbeek.

Now, you have come a very long way from Dawson's Creek to Mercy, like two totally different characters. Like, you're growing up. What's it like being a grown-up now?

Yeah. It's about time. Yeah. Uh, yeah, it's fun, man. It's a great cast. It's a great role.

Oh, it's interesting because I actually thought they shot in LA and they were sort of faking New Jersey.

No, man. No, no. No faking it here. Yeah, we uh we actually shoot in uh and take place in New Jersey.

So now you were North Carolina when you were doing the old show, now you're New Jersey. Like how are the fans different now if someone spots you on the street in North Carolina versus they spot you on the street in New Jersey?

Uh, New Jersey, it's it's usually like, "Yo, Varsity Blues, that was awesome!" North Carolina is like, "Oh my god, I was such a huge fan of Dawson's Creek."

Right. And how about how about LA cuz they see celebrities here all the time.

LA, it's kind of like

Now, how do you handle the medical jargon? Like on ER, they would always have like these mouthful of words and it took forever to figure it out. Like, how do you study for that when you have to say things you don't even know what it is.

Yeah. I'm telling you, after after all the excessively verbose emotional dialogue in Dawson's, like this is almost I'm kind of used to it in a weird way. Um

What was the biggest tongue twister you've had so far?

Biggest tongue twister I had was suggesting that we do a circumferential pulmonary isolation and a left linear ablation. To achieve to achieve to achieve bidirectional conduction block.

Now what that means

In English.

Yeah, subtitles go up on the screen here. So, so you've done all kinds of stuff from, you know, the football films, the sports stuff, like and what haven't you done that that you like to give a crack at?

What haven't I done? Uh, I've played a bunch of psychos. I've played really sensitive guys. I've played a cowboy. I've played a football player. I'm working my way through the Village People basically.

Right. That's true. Um We want to hear about psycho. That's more interesting.

Yeah. I've played some psychos. It's always fun.

How do you get in character for a psycho? What's your secret?

You know what it is, you just kind of like, I I feel like the trick is to always find some kind of not compassion for them, but just to not judge the psychos that you're playing.

So last thing we want to know, for Young Hollywood out there, what advice would you have just someone trying to break through and and just make it?

Oh, it only takes one. You know? Like it's there's so much rejection and it just chips away at your ego and it and it just it really humbles you, which is a good thing. If you can walk in a room and not be needy, everybody's going to want you.

Oh, that's great advice. And it only takes only takes one gig. And you keep it fun, and you take a break, and you have balance. You put all that together.

And appreciate it.

Yeah. Appreciate it. Yeah. Don't take it for granted.

Yeah, for sure.

Huh? There you go. You heard it here.