James Van Der Beek Recalls the Specific Moment When He Realized Dawson’s Creek Was Going to Change His Life: ‘Whoa’

James Van Der Beek took a stroll down memory lane.

On Saturday, April 5, the actor, 48, reunited with Kerr Smith for a Dawson’s Creek panel at Steel City Con in Pittsburgh, where they shared memories from their time on the set of the beloved ’90s show.

At one point, Van Der Beek recalled the exact moment when he realized that Dawson’s Creek was going to change his career — and life — forever.

“I made a movie when I was 17, and everybody said, ‘Are you ready for this to change your life?’ And I was like, ‘Oh, yeah!’ I remember going to that movie with my college friends, and there was only one other person in the theater,” he said. “I was like, ‘I don’t think this is going to change my life.’ And it didn’t at all.”

“So when I was in Dawson’s Creek, we were in North Carolina — we were far, far, far from Hollywood, we were on the WB Network, which, at the time, was a network that I didn’t even get on my closed-circuit cable in my dorm room — so some people were saying, ‘Are you ready for this to change your life?’ [I was] like, ‘I’ve been down this road before. This is not going to change anything.’ And they said, ‘Oh no, they’re buying billboards,’ and I said, ‘Whatever,’ ” Van Der Beek continued. “And then they flew me to L.A., and I saw a billboard with my face, like, blown up a thousand times bigger than my head already is, and I saw my name on the billboard.”

“It was just hilarious to me because I’ve had to type my name my whole life, like, shift, capital J, space, shift, capital V, space, shift, so the fact that somebody else had to press that shift button four times was the most hilarious thing,” he added. “It struck me as so funny, and I started laughing.”

Van Der Beek said the realization of just how big the show was hit him again not long after.

“Two weeks in, I was doing an appearance in Seattle, and they said, ‘There are going to be 100 people here.’ And I said, ‘There are not going to be 100 people.’ And there were, like, 500, and they were screaming, and I was like, ‘Whoa, this thing is going to be way bigger than I ever thought it was going to be.’ ”

Smith, 53, for his part, recalled, “For me, because I got there a little later, the beginning of season two, I remember it was my first week and Joshua [Jackson] said to me, he goes, this was after everything that James had experienced, and he said, ‘Are you ready for your life to change?’ I go, ‘What do you mean?’ He goes, ‘We are a h-i-i-it.’ And sure enough, he was right.”

Added the actor: “It was a life-changing experience.”

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Dawson’s Creek ran from 1998 to 2003 and followed the lives of Van Der Beek’s Dawson, Katie Holmes’ Joey Potter, Joshua Jackson’s Pacey Witter and Michelle Williams’ Jen Lindley. Smith and costar Meredith Monroe joined the series in season 2 as new students Jack and Andie McPhee.

Dawson and Jack first butted heads, after Jack took interest in Joey after she and Dawson broke up. But he later came out as gay, which strengthened his friendships with Dawson and Jen, among others.

It was a groundbreaking moment for TV, making him just the second openly gay character on a teen network drama after Rickie on 1994’s My So-Called Life.

The former costars’ reunion came about as Van Der Beek continues treatment for colorectal cancer, which he was diagnosed with in 2024.

In recent weeks, he has spoken about the toll it has taken on both him and his family, and how his former Dawson’s Creek castmates have been in touch to offer support.