{"id":909166,"date":"2026-07-03T05:43:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T05:43:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/909166\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T05:43:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T05:43:13","slug":"elle-honors-james-van-der-beek-after-final-onscreen-role","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/909166\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Elle’ Honors James Van Der Beek After Final Onscreen Role"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prime Video\u2019s Elle<\/a> took a moment during season one for a special dedication to the late James Van Der Beek<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The actor died in February<\/a> after his battle with colorectal cancer,\u00a0months before the Legally Blonde<\/a> prequel series\u2019 premiere in July. He was 48.<\/p>\n

In Elle<\/a>, Van Der Beek played Dean Wilson, the school district superintendent who was also running for mayor. (Spoiler Alert!) After befriending Elle\u2019s mother, Eva Woods (June Diane Raphael<\/a>), who helps him with his campaign, Elle Woods (Lexi Minetree<\/a>) ultimately exposes his extortion scheme with Principal Anderson (Matt Oberg), leading to his arrest towards the end of season one.<\/p>\n

After his first appearance in the third episode, titled \u201cYou\u2019re Not the Girl I Thought You Were,\u201d the series paid tribute to the actor with a title card ahead of the episode\u2019s end credits. It read, \u201cIn loving memory of James Van Der Beek.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"JuneJune Diane Raphael, who plays Eva, and James Van Der Beek, who plays Dean Wilson, in \u2018Elle\u2019 season one.<\/p>\n

After the actor\u2019s wife, Kimberly Van Der Beek, announced his death in February, Reese Witherspoon, who served as an executive producer on Elle, took to her Instagram Story to remember the Dawson\u2019s Creek alum<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cDevastated to hear about James Van Der Beek,\u201d she wrote at the time. \u201cWhat an extraordinary, talented man who also showed great kindness and grace in every action. Praying all the angels watch over his family during this difficult time.\u201d<\/p>\n

In addition to Elle, Van Der Beek\u2019s final film roles were in The Gates, which released in March, and Sidelined 2: Intercepted, which came out in Nov. 2025.<\/p>\n

As for the latter project, Noah Beck, who played the actor\u2019s onscreen son in Sidelined 2 and Sidelined: The QB (2024), had nothing but positive words to say about his experience working with Van Der Beek while chatting with The Hollywood Reporter <\/a>last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI could sit and talk about how amazing James was to me for an hour if you have it,\u201d Beck said, adding, \u201cWith James, he has such a presence to him, and you can\u2019t not be present in a scene with him. I learned so much, and I\u2019ve just felt like I had this front row seat to such an acting masterclass.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Prime Video\u2019s Elle took a moment during season one for a special dedication to the late James Van…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":909167,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[33],"tags":[185,225823,171,69997,74677,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-909166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-elle","tag-entertainment","tag-james-van-der-beek","tag-legally-blonde","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=909166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909166\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/909167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=909166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=909166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=909166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}