James Van Der Beek has just woken up from a nap as he hops on a Microsoft Teams call.
About nine months after sharing his colorectal cancer diagnosis with the world, the 48-year-old actor’s face looks thinner. He isn’t shy talking about the toll his illness has taken on him. He admits he doesn’t have as much energy as he used to. He has good days and bad days.
But, while he wouldn’t wish his illness on anyone, the actor adds it’s also given him something else, something he didn’t expect: a deeper sense of self-love.
“Cancer’s a wild thing,” he says. “It really does force you to look at your own mortality and decide what’s important and decide really what you want to live the rest of your life without. And so, one of the big things for me was recognizing how negative my self-talk was.”
He continues: “When I was getting treatment and away from the beautiful cacophony of six kids and 36 acres and five dogs and a bearded dragon and the beautiful chaos that is my life, in the quiet I realized how negatively I was talking to myself. And so, that started a whole journey of just recognizing how important self-love is and how necessary and how simple it is.”
James Van Der Beek and how cancer has changed him
Van Der Beek first revealed he had colorectal cancer in a November interview with People, sharing he was diagnosed in August 2023. He says his cancer was detected via colonoscopy. Now, he’s partnering with Guardant Health to encourage people to get screened for cancer regardless of if they have symptoms or not.
Doing so, he says, is often life-saving. It was for him.
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“To me, the biggest misunderstanding is that you need to have symptoms to get screened,” he says. “I was very healthy, in amazing cardiovascular shape, and had full-blown stage three cancer, and I didn’t know it.”
The actor says cancer has forced him to take a good, hard look at his life. It’s made him rethink what matters and let go of what doesn’t. It’s also made him reexamine who he really is, versus what he’s come to identify himself as.
“I was forced to look at myself and say, ‘Well, what am I, if I’m just a too skinny guy alone in a room with cancer?’ And the conclusion that I came to, after some meditation, was I’m still worthy of love. I’m still worthy of God’s love, but I’m still worthy of self-love, just for existing,” he says. “My conclusion is that I do believe we’re here to experience love − to connect to and to give and to receive love. But, in order to receive love, I think you have to have it for yourself first.”
Why he wants to work now more than ever
Van Der Beek has refused to let cancer stop him from acting. In fact, he says, it’s actually fueled him to act − and do other things he loves − even more. Van Der Beek recently appeared in Amazon’s “Overcompensating” and is set to also appear in the upcoming “Legally Blonde” spin-off series “Elle.”
Before cancer, Van Der Beek says, he was on the verge of taking a step back from acting. Since his diagnosis, however, he’s recommitted himself to it.
“For a minute I thought, ‘You know what? I don’t need acting. I don’t need it in the way that I did before,’ ” he says. “I’m very, very happy just doing this here with my family. And then, when I got cancer, I realized I love to tell stories. Acting is actually a real passion. Writing is a real passion, and I need to feed that. So, I joke that I’m the only guy I know who got cancer and realized I need to work more.”
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One of the best parts about acting, he says, is that, when the camera’s rolling, nothing else matters. You’re in the moment, not thinking about anything else − including cancer.
As for family life, Van Der Beek says his kids have all processed his illness differently. The actor and his wife Kimberly Brook share six children, whose ages span 3 to 14.
When it comes to parenting with an illness, Van Der Beek has made honesty his policy. Being transparent, he says, has “really allowed for some lovely moments of connection” with his kids.
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“We made the choice to just be as honest as we can with them,” he says. “They all handle it differently. They all hide it differently. Their concern manifests differently in each of them. But again, telling them what I’m going through, it actually allows them to show up for me in a way that’s just been so beautiful. ‘Dad, can I get you tea?’ ‘No, dad, I’ll get that for you.’ ‘How are you feeling today?’ They know when I’m having a bad day. I mean, kids, they pick up on everything.”
Though he’s grateful for the new perspective cancer’s given him, he obviously wishes we lived in a world where no one had to go through it. That’s why he’s “shouting from the rooftops: Get screened. Talk to your doctor.”
“I’m feeling good,” he says. “I’ve learned a lot. But, if I could save people from having to go through this journey, I definitely will. I would still give colorectal cancer zero stars.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: James Van Der Beek gives update on colorectal cancer
