MADE TO BE BROKEN: An interview with The Rules of Attraction star James Van Der Beek By Ryan Kugler 10/14/02 Part 1 of 2

With the recent release of Roger Avary's The Rules of Attraction, James Van Der Beek should be free of typecasting forever. One look at his explosive turn as drug using, sex-starved college student Sean Bateman (brother to American Psycho's Patrick), and you will no longer only see him as WB poster boy Dawson Leery.

Van Der Beek is currently starring in the hit teen staple Dawson's Creek (now in its sixth and most likely final season), but is ready to move on. He previously found cinematic success with the High School football drama Varsity Blues (1999), but the follow-up, Texas Rangers (2001), sat on the shelf for a while before being dumped in theaters for a week on its way to video. If the buzz is any indication, Van Der Beek is poised to breakthrough in a major way with his work in The Rules of Attraction. Even though the film is polarizing audiences, I think everyone can agree that his performance is the highlight.

CinemaSpeak sat down with Van Der Beek at the recent Los Angeles press day for The Rules of Attraction.

(Note: This interview was conducted as part of a press roundtable, therefore not all of the questions were asked by CinemaSpeak.)

When we talked to you about Varsity Blues a few years ago, you seemed like this clean-cut guy. Now suddenly and without warning, we hate you. So I'm sure you've heard this question before, but why change your image so dramatically?

Changing my image is kind of a by-product, really. It was the best unmade script I've ever gotten my hands on. It was the most interesting, most complex, most fascinating character I've really ever come across, and I'd met Roger and really liked him. I thought he was fearless. I thought he was creative. I thought he was totally capable of pulling off what he was talking about pulling off, so it just really seemed like the perfect thing to do.

And no hesitation?

No. No hesitation at all.

There's a litany of things in here that your teenage girl fans might not be happy about.

To me, the bigger risk is staying the same just for the sake of staying the same. Plus, if you're going to ask people to pay the nine bucks to go see something, you don't want to give them the same thing that they can get for free on TV every week.

How does this compare to working on Dawson's Creek?

Completely different process. Dawson's is a well-oiled machine at this point. You get the scripts, churn them out and do the best you can. Rules was a total discovery process. You're not limited by what's appropriate at 8:00 on a network. I mean, in Dawson's Creek you can tell a lot of stories, but there are certain things that you just can't do.

Is it safe to presume that this is the end of the line for Dawson?

I've been told that it's most likely the last year for the show.

Would you want to keep doing it? I mean 90210 went 10 seasons or something like that. How many seasons have you been on?

This is our 6th.

Do you think about it, though? Do you think like, you don't want the show to turn into a cartoon of what it used to be? Get out on top kind of thing?

Absolutely. Yeah, it's always nice to excuse yourself before you're asked to leave.

I heard you researched this role. Do you know anyone like this?

Yeah, you pull from everything -- from the people you know and the things you see, from music, from everything. Pretty much any experience you've ever had is usable. But really, the character was just so strong and so well formed off the script, and it just gave me so many options. I really just took all of my cues from the script.

The title of the film is The Rules of Attraction. Do you have rules? What attracts you to certain people?

Confidence. I don't know. I think that's kind of the point of the movie -- there are no rules. It's not like you can have a litmus test telling you things that can attract you to a person. I think that's something everybody kind of struggles with. Obviously, the characters in this movie do and they come to their own conclusions.

What are you hoping that the reaction to this film will be as far as your career?

Hopefully, it will make people aware that I'm able to do something different. Hopefully, it will create some more opportunities to get to work some more.

Are you worried about what the fans will think?

No, I mean, if it's not Dawson they can still tune in Wednesday night and get him. This is something completely different. I can do both.

Dawson has a fascination with Steven Spielberg. Have you ever met him in real life?

I did, actually.

What was that like?

It was at a Lakers game. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I turned around and it was Steven Spielberg.

And what'd you do?

I said, "Hi, nice to meet you." He kind of came over to just say hi.

We were talking to Ian (co-star Ian Somerhalder) about your kissing scene and he was saying that you guys had a beer before you kissed. Can you tell me your end of it? How did you prepare for it? Was it awkward? What was it like for you?

It was something that I really liked in the script. I thought it was something really different. I loved the way it was handled with the split-screen. You don't have to watch it. You don't even have to believe that it happened really, but it was a great way of throwing something like that at an audience. It was completely unexpected. At the time, I had this fantasy that nobody would talk about it, that the audience would actually be surprised and shocked when it happened. I loved that aspect.

Click for Part Two

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