'I Have a Lot of Optimism'

IN AUGUST 2023 THE ACTOR WAS STUNNED TO LEARN HE HAD STAGE 3 COLORECTAL CANCER AT AGE 46. HOW HE'S LIVING WITH THE DIAGNOSIS AND WHY HE FEELS GOOD ABOUT HIS FUTURE: 'THERE'S ALWAYS HOPE'

- GILLIAN TELLING, VANESSA ETIENNE

As James Van Der Beek tosses a football to his oldest son, Joshua, 12, during his family's nightly sunset walk, he calls out to his oldest daughter, Olivia, 14, to keep an eye on her 3-year-old brother Jeremiah, who's giggling as he tries to spray the family's chickens-and anyone else who happens by-with a hose. "Thank you, Olivia, love you," says Van Der Beek. The eighth grader calls back, "Love you too, Dad!" and makes heart hands at him. The bucolic scene, complete with five dogs trotting among Van Der Beek and his wife Kimberly's six kids, suggests that everything is idyllic on the family's Texas ranch. But it's not.

"On August 31 of last year I became one of the many millions of Americans and people around the world who found out they have cancer," says Van Der Beek, 47, during an exclusive interview with People in one of the barns on his property, which doubles as a yoga and meditation studio.

"Stage 3 colorectal cancer." Now, after quietly navigating the shocking diagnosis over the past year, the actor is ready to share his story in the hopes that he can raise awareness about a disease that has become frighteningly more common in younger adults in recent years. According to the American Cancer Society, one in five new colorectal cancer diagnoses are among people under the age of 55, up from one in 10 in 1995. "It's scary," says Van Der Beek. "I'd always associated cancer with age and unhealthy, sedentary lifestyles. But I was in amazing cardiovascular shape. I tried to eat healthy-or as far as I knew it at the time. This has been a crash course in mastery of mind, body, spirit. I thought, 'This is either going to take me out of my body, or it's going to teach me how to truly live in it.""