From Dawson to DJ Diplo
James Van Der Beek might have finally managed to shake off the teen show, Dani McDonald says.
If you’ve heard of James Van Der Beek, you’ll know him as Dawson Leery, the emotional teenage heart-throb from the TV series Dawson’s Creek, which aired from 1998 to 2003.
Twenty years have passed since Van Der Beek’s days as Dawson; since then he’s gone on to play himself in Don’t Trust the B .... in Apt. 23, The Rules of Attraction and even Keisha’s 2011 single video Blow, but none have reintroduced him to the spotlight like his next project - Vice TV’s What Would Diplo Do?
It’s Viceland’s first scripted television series, in which Van Der Beek plays a fictional version of an international DJ superstar named Diplo in a show about life seen through the eyes of a guy who can bring 60,000 people to their feet, but kind of sucks at the one-on-one stuff. TV Diplo seems like a rich Millennial jerk. Real-life Diplo heads a charity called Heaps Decent and was a Philadelphia schoolteacher before he took on the music industry.
As Van Der Beek explains it, ‘‘the world is divided into two camps – there are people who don’t know who Diplo is, and there are people who can’t imagine that somebody doesn’t know who Diplo is’’.
For those not in the know, he’s one of the world’s most successful DJs: ‘‘I would kind of describe him as the Frank Sinatra of electronic music,’’ Van Der Beek says.
‘‘He’s the guy a lot of other musicians coalesce around, he is a DJ, so he gets paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to go to clubs in Las Vegas and all around the world and festivals and takes the audience somewhere that makes them go crazy and gets them to throw their hands in the air and experience being happy about paying money to go see a person amongst a bunch of sweaty bodies.
‘‘That’s one facet of him. And the other part is he is a producer for Madonna, Beyonce, Justin Bieber and he’s also worked with a lot of newer, younger artists. His musical styles are varied across many different types of electronic music and into pop music as well.
‘‘He’s kind of the king of that world but outside of that, his facial recognition is not at a point where he couldn’t have somebody else play him and they wouldn’t buy it.’’ That level of anonymity allows Van Der Beek to exaggerate his character, though he did grow a moustache similar to Diplo’s which, he reckons, makes him look like an Italian porn star. ‘‘But I keep telling myself that I look like Paul Newman,’’ he says.
What Would Diplo Do? all started when Van Der Beek heard Diplo, real name Thomas Wesley Pentz, on the radio talking about Latin beats and reggaeton and their influences on him.
‘‘I thought, this guy is not only a craftsmen but really a kind of a genius,’’ Van Der Beek recalls.
‘‘He then started to play it and when you heard it, it was exciting and there was really something to the music and it just caught you.’’
An opportunity came up two to three years later to act as Diplo on a commercial for the Mad Decent Block Party Tour – Mad Decent is Diplo’s label and delivers an annual free day party.
It was a great opportunity for the music-loving Van Der Beek, who has an ‘‘eclectic’’ taste in music.
‘‘It depends on the mood, I’m very mood driven. I listen to electronic music when I work out, I will listen to very mellow kind of folk music when I’m making pancakes for my kids, I’ll get a little more experimental when I’m writing or when I’m having ideas,’’ he says.
Playing, not so much. He does recall playing the guitar in high school to ‘‘try to get girls’’.
‘‘I learned three chords and I was really bad at it. I sang, I always sang when I was a kid, so I’ve always had an appreciation for music and what it takes to play it,’’ he says.
Nick Weidenfeld, Viceland’s president of programming, approached Van Der Beek for a show and from there, he set out to write a Diplo series which ‘‘really did try to get at the truth in some way but through the ridiculous’’.
‘‘All of the episodes began as philosophical conversations in the writers’ room; once we kind of figured out what we wanted to say... we then just layered ridiculous stupidity on top of it.’’
Is it weird to act out a role about someone who is still alive? A little, Van Der Beek confesses.
‘‘It takes somebody who is bold, famous and confident enough in their ability to not take themselves seriously to a very deep degree and I think people like that are pretty rare,’’ Van Der Beek says.
‘‘Wes really gets it. He gets celebrity, he gets media, he gets social media, to a degree a lot of people don’t and because he can create music he has no preciousness about his image.
‘‘It’s a weird thing and honestly, because I had the experience playing myself on Don’t Trust the B .... in Apt. 23, I had this really weird unique experience that not a lot of people have...
‘‘Just having crafted that and gone down the road with that really gave me some knowledge of how to build it in a way that’s not a one-off joke, that it’s actually a full fleshed-out character that can sustain more than just 40 seconds of a little joke.’’
❚ What Would Diplo Do? airs Mondays from September 25, 7.30pm, Viceland.