Entertainment

Stars of Dawson’s Creek are paying tribute to James Van Der Beek following his death.

The 48-year-old actor, who is known for playing the show’s titular character, Dawson Leery, died Wednesday morning following a battle with colorectal cancer.

His family shared the news on his official Instagram page. He is survived by his wife, Kimberly Van Der Beek, and their six children.

Upon the news of his death, actors who starred alongside Van Der Beek in the hit WB teen drama, including Katie Holmes, Mary-Margaret Humes and Busy Philipps, took to social media to remember the actor.

Holmes shared a photo of a handwritten letter to Van Der Beek on Instagram, captioning the photo, “I formed some words with a heavy heart. This is a lot to process. I am so grateful to have shared in a piece of James’ journey. He is beloved. Kimberly, we love you and will be here always for you and your beautiful children.”

Philipps, who portrayed Audrey Liddell, wrote in her social media tribute: “My heart is deeply hurting for all of us today…every person who knew James and loved him, anyone who loved his work or had the pleasure of meeting him, all of his dear friends and community that surrounded him as he battled this illness, especially his parents and brother and sister.”

She went on to say she is “heartbroken” for Van Der Beek’s wife and children, and urged others to help them out via their GoFundMe.

“James Van Der Beek was one in a billion and he will be forever missed and i don’t know what else to say,” she added. “i am just so so sad. He was my friend and i loved him and i’m so grateful for our friendship all these years.”

Humes, who played Van Der Beek’s TV mom in the show, shared photos of herself with Van Der Beek and wrote she is at a “loss for words.”

“James, my gracious warrior, you fought a hard battle against all odds with such quiet strength and dignity,” she captioned the post on Instagram. “I will always love and admire you for that. Our last conversations … merely a few days ago … are forever sitting softly in my heart for safe keeping. To our extended Dawson’s Creek family of friends … please be respectful of our silences at the moment as Beautiful Kimberly and family have asked for peaceful privacy for now.”

The official Instagram page for Dawson’s Creek via Sony Pictures also addressed Van Der Beek’s death and remembered the actor for his iconic role as Leery.

“We are deeply saddened by the passing of James Van Der Beek,” the show said. “His iconic portrayal of Dawson Leery helped define a generation of television for fans and continues to resonate with audiences today. Our thoughts are with his family and loved ones.”

Additionally, stars across Hollywood began paying tribute to Van Der Beek and took to the comments section of his Instagram post to remember him, including Sarah Michelle Gellar.

“I’m so sad for your beautiful family,” Gellar commented on Van Der Beek’s Instagram post. “While James legacy will always live on, this is a huge loss to not just your family but the world. F*** cancer.”

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Nicole Kidman’s latest show has debuted its official trailer. Prime Video has released the new trailer for its crime thriller series Scarpetta. Kidman stars alongside an ensemble that includes Jamie Lee Curtis, Bobby Cannavale, Simon Baker and Ariana DeBose. The new show, which is based on Patricia Cornwell’s bestselling books, premieres on March 11 …

The Scrubs reboot is coming very soon. ABC has released the trailer for the first season of its revival of the beloved comedy series. The show premieres its first two episodes on Feb. 25. This revival picks back up in the modern day and reunites the original cast of Zach Braff as John “J.D.” Dorian, Donald Faison as Christopher Turk and Sarah Chalke as Elliot Reid …

The official trailer for Vladimir has arrived. Netflix has shared the new trailer for the upcoming limited series starring Rachel Weisz and Leo Woodall. It premieres all eight of its episodes on March 5. Vladimir follows what happens when a professor becomes fixated on her magnetic new colleague …

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

The celebrity romance that took the country by storm in the ’90s plays out in the new limited series Love Story: John F. Kennedy Jr. & Carolyn Bessette.

This first season, which arrives to FX and Hulu on Thursday, marks the debut of Ryan Murphy’s brand-new Love Story anthology series. It stars relative newcomers Paul Anthony Kelly and Sarah Pidgeon as the titular couple.

On the red carpet at the show’s New York premiere, Pidgeon spoke about what it was like to bring this story to life.

“We understood the sensitivities … of trying to portray real people. But I think we always tried to lead with integrity and the truth of what might have happened behind closed doors,” Pidgeon said.

What was happening behind closed doors “was sort of the focus of this show,” Pidgeon continued. “We know the reality that they were dealing with and what might have been those discussions that the public wasn’t always privy to.”

Erich Bergen stars as Anthony Radziwill, the nephew of former first lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and cousin of John F. Kennedy Jr.

He says that John F. Kennedy Jr. and Bessette were the perfect couple to start this new Love Story anthology series off with.

“I think when you look at a photo of John and Carolyn, especially in those years before they got married and on their wedding day, and even after their wedding day, these photos are filled with this tangible energy of excitement, and it was all still right in front of them,” Bergen said. “It was falling in love in New York City, which is the greatest city to fall in love in, and it’s very different than falling in love in other places. The energy here, the excitement. You fall in love with each other and fall in love with the city at the same time.” 

Disney is the parent company of ABC News, FX Networks and Hulu.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Bud Cort, the actor known for his co-starring role in the 1971 film Harold and Maude, has died. He was 77.

Dorian Hannaway, a television producer and friend of Cort, confirmed Cort’s death to ABC News on Wednesday. Cort died of what was described as a long illness.

Cort was born Walter Edward Cox on March 29, 1948, in Rye, New York. Director Robert Altman discovered the actor and cast him in two 1970 films, M*A*S*H and Brewster McCloud, which both went on to be hits.

He earned a Golden Globe nomination for his role as Harold Chasen, a young man who falls in love with a 79-year-old Holocaust survivor played by Ruth Gordon, in director Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude. The movie was selected to be preserved in the National Film Registry in 1997, as the Library of Congress deemed it to be “culturally, historically or aesthetically significant.”

Other notable roles of his include parts in Michael Mann’s 1995 film Heat, the 1999 movie Dogma and Wes Anderson’s 2004 film The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. He also appeared in Coyote Ugly, Pollock, She Dances Alone and Electric Dreams.

Cort is survived by his brother, Joseph Cox, and his family; his sister Kerry Cox; his sister Tracy Cox Berkman and her family; and his sister Shelly Cox Dufour and her family.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Actors Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni are facing off in a New York City federal court for a settlement conference in Lively’s lawsuit against Baldoni, with whom she co-starred in It Ends With Us.

The It Ends With Us co-stars, flanked by their attorneys, smiled at a small crowd of media gathered outside of the U.S. District Court as they entered Wednesday morning, but did not speak to reporters.

The court-ordered settlement conference is a last effort for a resolution ahead of the actors’ scheduled May 18 trial in a legal battle that has stretched on for more than a year.

According to court documents, each side will make a 10- to 15-minute presentation during the conference summarizing the issues attorneys believe are important for the opposing party to consider.

The judge will then meet separately with each side in private. The proceedings are not open to the public or press, and there is no word on how long Wednesday’s conference is expected to last.

Lively filed a complaint against Baldoni with the California Civil Rights Department in December 2024, accusing him of sexual harassment on the set of It Ends with Us, and accusing both Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios, of engaging in a “social manipulation” campaign to “destroy” her reputation.

The two later filed lawsuits against each other in New York, with Lively reiterating the claims made in her earlier complaint and accusing Baldoni and Wayfarer of allegedly engaging in “unlawful, retaliatory astroturfing” to ruin her reputation in a lawsuit seeking $500 million in damages.

Baldoni’s attorney denied the allegations.

Shortly after Lively filed her lawsuit, Baldoni filed a $400 million countersuit against Lively, her husband, Ryan Reynolds, and the couple’s publicist for extortion and defamation, claiming Lively had “robbed” him of control over the film and had destroyed his reputation.

Lively’s lawyers denied the allegations and called Baldoni’s suit “another chapter in the abuser playbook.”

A federal judge in New York dismissed Baldoni’s suit last June, formally ending the counterclaim in October after Baldoni did not refile an amended complaint.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

James Van Der Beek, the actor best known for starring in the teen TV drama Dawson’s Creek and films including Varsity Blues, has died. He was 48.

“Our beloved James David Van Der Beek passed peacefully this morning. He met his final days with courage, faith, and grace,” reads a note posted on Van Der Beek’s Instagram page. “There is much to share regarding his wishes, love for humanity and the sacredness of time. Those days will come. For now we ask for peaceful privacy as we grieve our loving husband, father, son, brother, and friend.”

Van Der Beek revealed in a November 2024 Instagram post that he’d been diagnosed with cancer, stating that despite the diagnosis he was “in a good place and feeling strong.”

Later that month, the actor further revealed to People that he was battling Stage 3 colorectal cancer. Van Der Beek shared that he received the diagnosis after a colonoscopy.

In December 2024, Van Der Beek joined Good Morning America to discuss his mindset and emotional state during his ongoing battle with the disease.

“And thus began the full-time job of having cancer, signing up for all the various medical portals and getting on the phone with insurance and creating appointments. … I was not prepared for just how much of a full-time job that it really is,” Van Der Beek said. 

“I’m going to make changes that I never would have made otherwise, that I’m going to look back on in 30 years and say, ‘Thank gGod this happened.’ So, what can I do right now in order to make that the case? And that’s how it was, about 90 percent of the time,” he went on. “But 10 percent of the time, I was a sobbing, terrified mess, which I feel like is a pretty good percentage.” 

Born March 8, 1977, in Cheshire, Connecticut, Van Der Beek began acting while in middle school and made his professional debut at age 16 in a 1993 off-Broadway production in New York City. He continued to appear in various amateur and professional productions throughout high school and while attending New Jersey’s Drew University.

It was while he was a student at Drew in 1998 that Van Der Beek auditioned for and won the title role of Dawson Leery in The WB network’s new show Dawson’s Creek. Van Der Beek dropped out of Drew University to star in the show for the whole of its six-year run, opposite fellow cast members and future stars Katie Holmes, Michelle Williams and Joshua Jackson.

“That was when life was at its craziest,” Van Der Beek said about his time on the hit show in a 2020 interview with Good Morning America. “At 20 years old I got stupidly lucky and found myself in a zeitgeist, cultural phenomenon TV show, and I was suddenly famous.”

Van Der Beek also admitted his sudden stardom was difficult to handle. “My reaction to fame was to run away from it,” he said, though looking back he said he would tell his younger self to “relax, be grateful, enjoy it.”

Despite having already begun a small film career with roles in films like the 1996 romantic drama I Love You, I Love You Not, which also starred Claire Danes, Julia Stiles and Jude Law, Van Der Beek’s Dawson’s Creek fame earned him the headlining role in the 1999 coming-of-age sports drama Varsity Blues. Van Der Beek’s character of Jonathan “Mox” Moxon, the backup quarterback on a small-town Texas high school football team, remains the film performance for which he’s best remembered. It also earned him the best breakout male performance award at the 1999 MTV Movie Awards.

“It was a movie I really, really cared about, it was a role I really cared about,” Van Der Beek told Good Morning America. “It was a role I really had to fight for. I had to fight for that role, nobody wanted me for that role initially.”

The success of Varsity Blues led to roles in other films, including 2000’s horror film send-up Scary Movie, in which Van Der Beek made a cameo appearance as his Dawson’s Creek character, the 2001 Western Texas Rangers and the 2002 dark comedy Rules of Attraction. Later film roles included the 2009 thriller Formosa Betrayed, 2013’s Labor Day with Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin, and the 2019 comedy Jay and Silent Bob Reboot.

Yet Van Der Beek remained a larger small-screen presence, appearing on dozens of hit TV shows over the years in starring or guest roles, including How I Met Your Mother, Don’t Trust the B—- in Apartment 23, One Tree Hill, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, CSI: Cyber and Modern Family, as well as providing the voice of Boris Hauntley on the Disney animated children’s series Vampirina. Van Der Beek also placed fifth on season 28 of ABC’s Dancing with the Stars in 2019. In 2025, he was announced as a recurring character on the Legally Blonde prequel series Elle. 

In September 2025, the cast of Dawson’s Creek reunited for a one-night-only live reading of the show’s pilot episode to raise money for the nonprofit F Cancer and for Van Der Beek. A stomach virus prevented him from attending in person — Tony winner Lin-Manuel Miranda stepped into the role of Dawson Leery in Van Der Beek’s place — but he shared a video message in which he thanked those who attended and shared his disappointment for not being unable to “stand on that stage and thank every soul in the theater for showing up for me, and against cancer, when I needed it most.”

Van Der Beek was married twice. He’s survived by his wife, film producer Kimberly Van Der Beek, and their six children.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Jason Momoa is set to be the face of a popular video game’s film adaptation.

The actor will star in a movie adaptation of Helldivers for PlayStation Productions and Sony Pictures. This film will be based on the Arrowhead Game Studios video game of the same name. It has a release date of Nov. 10, 2027.

Justin Lin, who has directed many movies in the Fast and Furious franchise, including The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Fast Five and F9, will helm the film. Lin will also produce the film alongside Hutch Parker and Asad Qizilbash.

The Helldivers video game made its debut in 2015. Its sequel, Helldivers 2, sold over 12 million units on both the PlayStation 5 and PC in the first four months after its launch in 2024.

It is a shooter-style video game that has a story that focuses on an elite group of soldiers who battle alien creatures that threaten to destroy the fictional planet of Super Earth.

There is currently no word on who will star alongside Momoa in the upcoming film.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Still haven’t filled the Jenny Han love story hole in your heart after The Summer I Turned Pretty ended its three-season run? You’re in luck.

Netflix has shared its first look at season 3 of XO, Kitty. The streamer also announced that the third season will debut on April 2.

Additionally, the first synopsis for the third season of the show has arrived. It finds Kitty Song Covey (Anna Cathcart) returning “for her final year at KISS with her perfect senior year mapped out. She’s going to make meaningful memories with her friends, grow closer to her relatives in Korea, and make big decisions about her future.”

“And she’s going to define her relationship with Min Ho (Sang Heon Lee). For real this time,” the synopsis continues. “But when surprise revelations throw her plans, and relationships, off course, Kitty will have to learn to embrace the unexpected.”

XO, Kitty is a spinoff series inspired by the popular To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before film trilogy, which itself is based on Han’s bestselling books. Season 3 will consist of eight 30-minute episodes. Valentina Garza serves as the showrunner, executive producer and writer while Han executive produces.

Han took to Instagram on Wednesday to share all of the new photos from the upcoming season. Her carousel begins with a photo of Kitty and Min Ho in front of a cherry blossom tree staring into each other’s eyes.

“First look at @xokittynetflix Season 3,” Han captioned the post alongside a love letter emoji. “Out April 2!”

Also starring in season 3 are Minyeong Choi as Dae, Gia Kim as Yuri, Anthony Keyvan as Q and Regan Aliyah as Juliana.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

A man was briefly detained and then released Tuesday evening in connection with the Nancy Guthrie disappearance case, according to an ABC News’ affiliate KNXV and a law enforcement official briefed on the investigation.

In a day filled with a number of developments in the case of the suspected abduction of the mom of Today show host Savannah Guthrie, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department, with assistance from the FBI, detained the individual in a location south of Tucson, the source said, and law enforcement searched a location associated with the individual.

In a statement on social media, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department said deputies “detained a subject during a traffic stop.”

A court-authorized search related to the investigation was carried out by the sheriff’s department, with assistance of the FBI’s Evidence Response Team, at a location in Rio Rico, Arizona, about 60 miles south of Tucson, the department said. The operation lasted several hours, according to the department.

The developments, more than a week into the disappearance case, came on the heels of a series of eerie images being released by law enforcement of a masked man approaching Nancy Guthrie’s front door and as investigators continued to search in her neighborhood.

Earlier Tuesday, FBI Director Kash Patel released images and video of an “armed individual” in connection with the disappearance of 84-year-old Nancy Guthrie.

The images showed someone wearing a mask, gloves, a backpack, armed with a holstered handgun, at the front door of Nancy Guthrie’s Tucson-area home around the time investigators suspect she was abducted on Feb. 1.

“[L]aw enforcement has uncovered these previously inaccessible new images showing an armed individual appearing to have tampered with the camera at Nancy Guthrie’s front door the morning of her disappearance,” Patel said in his post.

The Guthrie family was shown the images before their public release, law enforcement sources told ABC News.

Savannah Guthrie posted the images to her Instagram account, with the message, “We believe she is still alive. Bring her home.”

Anyone with information is urged to call 911, the Pima County Sheriff’s Department at 520-351-4900 or the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Chicken Shop Date host and creator Amelia Dimoldenberg is set to star in a romantic comedy she is developing. The film will be about a journalist whose life unravels when a celebrity interview turns into a real-life romance. Dimoldenberg shared the news of the upcoming film to her Instagram, writing, “a dream come true : ) so excited to be developing my very own movie.” …

We now know who will step into the role that Odessa A’zion departed in the upcoming A24 film Deep Cuts. Deadline reports that Ariela Barer has joined the film and will play the role of Zoe Gutierrez. Sean Durkin wrote and will direct Deep Cuts, which is a love story set in the 2000s that will also star Cailee Spaeny and Drew Starkey …

The first images from Prime Video’s upcoming live-action series Spider-Noir have arrived. They show off star Nicolas Cage in his first-ever leading TV role. The new show will premiere in spring 2026. It’s a live-action series based on the Marvel comic Spider-Man Noir. Lamorne Morris, Li Jun Li and Karen Rodriguez also star in the series, which will be available to stream in two different ways — what Prime Video is calling the Authentic Black & White option or the True-Hue Full Color option …

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.