James Van Der Beek on Quaker Chewy’s ‘Take Your Child to Play’ Campaign, Potential ‘Dawson’s Creek’ Reunion, Impact of ‘Pose,’ and Ranch Life in Texas (Exclusive)

’90s heartthrob James Van Der Beek swooned the ladies with his looks and characters played on classics like Dawson’s Creek, but nowadays, he’s all about being a husband and father, with work coming second. It’s the reason why he’s partnered with Quaker Chewy on their Take Your Child to Play Campaign. The campaign puts a twist on the ever-nostalgic “Take Your Child to Work Day” by encouraging parents/guardians to take a break from their everyday routines and make time to “Take Your Child to Play.”  As part of Quaker Chewy’s commitment to helping provide access to play, the brand will be donating $200,000 through the Quaker Chewy Play Fund to help build more playgrounds across the U.S. in partnership with KABOOM!. Starting April 25 through May 25, Quaker Chewy is encouraging parents to take the Quaker Chewy Play Pledge to commit to an hour of uninterrupted play for a chance to win 100 boxes of Quaker Chewy to help fuel play.  

To kickstart the campaign, Van Der Beek spoke with PopCulture.com about why the campaign resonates so much with him. The married father of six also dished on balancing work and family, whether or not a Dawson’s Creek reunion is in the near future, the impact of the show and his work on Pose, and how life on his Texas ranch is a better upbringing for his children away from Hollywood. 

PC: Thank you for taking to speak with PopCulture today about this new partnership. First and foremost, tell us about Quaker Chewy’s twist on their traditional Take Your Child to Work Day.

JVDB: So their thing is Take Your Child to Play Day, which I think is just awesome. I grew up with Quaker Chewy in my lunchbox as a kid, and I love that the brand is recognizing the importance of playing with your kids and they’re championing it. They’re spending $200,000 to build play spaces all across the country.

And what I love about this campaign is the ask is that you go to the website and take a pledge to play one hour uninterrupted with your kid. And in doing so, it enters you into a chance to win 100 boxes of Quaker Chewy. But I love that it’s having parents and guardians schedule time to play with their kids. Because as any busy parent knows, if you don’t schedule it, it’s not going to happen.

I just think, for us, play is such a worthy endeavor. It’s good for my kids, physically, emotionally. It’s good for our relationship. It’s a stress reliever. And it’s connection and it’s an opportunity to connect with them one-on-one, to let them know they’re a priority. And you just never know what memories they’re going to hold onto. So yeah, that’s why it felt like a great fit.

Now how did the partnership between you guys come about?

They reached out and they told me what it was about and I jumped at it.

You mentioned that this is all about scheduling time and putting the importance of playtime with you, your family, at the forefront. As a busy father, how can you relate to this campaign, and how are you learning how to balance work, marriage, and family?

You’ve really got to prioritize. You’ve got to schedule things. You’ve got to schedule date night, you’ve got to schedule playtime, you’ve got to schedule work, and leave a little bit of buffer for all the chaos that inevitably ensues and pushes you off your schedule here and there.

How I related to it was, especially with as many kids as I have, I find that one-on-one or maybe two-on-one playtime is really the most impactful. And like I said, the only way that happens is if you really carve that time out of your schedule.

Now, you mentioned that you loved Quaker Chewy as a child. Is Quaker Chewys a part of your household now?

JYeah. I just love the brand, kind of what they’re standing for, and what they’re doing with this campaign.

We mentioned work. Obviously, people love you for your role on Dawson’s Creek, which was a phenomenon during its peak. What do you feel as if the show’s impact has been all this time later?

I don’t know. I mean, I don’t think it’s really up to me to decide. The nice thing about making any kind of entertainment is, the audience owns it and they have their own specific personal relationship to it. I mean, it’s wild. I get people coming up and saying that they watched the show, kids, and teenagers saying now that they’re watching the show, and I just wonder what it’s like for them to watch a show where for the first three seasons, nobody had a cell phone. I would imagine it’s them looking into a time capsule.

You mentioned that people are watching the show with their kids because it’s available on streaming services. So you guys are gaining a whole slew of younger fans now and there’s a lot of different reboots and revivals and reunions. And we know that you guys have gotten together for the 20th anniversary and there have been different specials. But have there been talks of a full reboot?

No, nobody’s talked about that. I think it would have to come from Kevin Williamson, the creator of the show. I mean, I keep in touch with those guys. But yeah, there’s nothing in the works.

Now you also started in the critically-acclaimed FX series Pose. How was it stepping into that world and emerging in that culture?

I loved it, man. My cast, they were so cool. Some of them, they hadn’t acted very much. Some of them, it was their first time acting, and they just crushed it. It was a real eye-opening education. I loved working with Ryan Murphy and the whole crew, everyone. Everyone was just A+, across the board. That was a real treat.

With the subject matter that the show entailed, how timely did you feel the show was and do you feel like it ended too quickly?

I’m trying to think back to when I said yes to the project… I just remember saying yes to it automatically because it was a world, at the time, that I hadn’t really seen portrayed. It was a different moment culturally, for sure.

But the length of shows is always determined by a number of factors. So I don’t know, you can’t predict it, you can’t second guess it. You just kind of are grateful for shows for however long they run.

One of the things that has interested me recently as far as your life is concerned, is that you and your family moved from LA to a 36-acre ranch in Texas and that garnered a lot of attention. But I feel like we’re seeing a lot more celebrities bring ranch and farm life to the forefront. Kelis has been very vocal about her lifestyle. So what would you say are the benefits for you and your family since the move and how would you describe life outside of Tinseltown?

I mean, for us, it was space, that was the biggest thing that we wanted. We wanted space, we wanted a connection to nature and that meant moving outside of Los Angeles.

And we just got really lucky, we found a beautiful spot that allows the kids to walk out the door, to play, to adventure, to climb trees, build forts. We have a nature camp where they build fires in the morning.

And what it does is, it just kind of gets us on a little bit more of a natural rhythm. We pay more attention to when the sun comes up, but when the sun goes down. We know what phase the moon is in. We’re grateful for rain when it comes because we’ve had some pretty dry years. We can watch the land change and get dry and then get green and flowers bloom, and we’re planting a garden.

It teaches kids, teaches my kids, I think, some awareness of their environment and a connection to the natural rhythms of the seasons and I’m really grateful that they can have that.

So experiencing this with them versus the life that you know grew up in and the life that you lived in Hollywood, how are you taking it all in as far as with your kids being able to enjoy this type of lifestyle versus the other?

I’m loving it, and it’s an adventure for me, too. I mean, I grew up in Connecticut and then I worked in New York, then North Carolina, and then I lived in Los Angeles. So this is really new for me. I mean, I’m not used to having the water go out and having to figure out how to fix the water pump. These are all adventures.

But what I’m psyched about is one of the things I really want to teach my kid is to not be afraid to jump into learning something. “OK, this is a problem, this is a skill that you know may have not encountered before,” to really just model for them jumping into it, figuring it out, learning, gaining a new skill.

There are a lot of things you can teach them in life, but I feel like if they’re confident enough to jump into something that they’ve never done before and to allow for the process of learning and getting better and perfecting and not feeling like they have to be perfect or have to know how to do everything in life, I feel like that’s a really valuable lesson to leave them with.

It also seems like this partnership, as far as this campaign with Quaker Chewy, fits right into the lifestyle that you guys are living now, too, because you were really able to slow down and take in the beauty of life and time. And you mentioned because of the number of kids that you have, that’s very important, as well. And obviously, summer is coming, so how are you guys looking to spend your summer this year?

I don’t know, we’re still trying to figure that out. But I think there will definitely be an RV trip somewhere in the cards, just what direction will probably be determined by the kids. We’ll take a look at a map and ask them where they want to go, if there’s someplace they want to go back to, or if they want to venture out and try to visit a couple of new states.