James Van Der Beek Will Play Diplo In A New TV Comedy Series

What Would Diplo Do? premieres this year.

January 04, 2017

Viceland has ordered six episodes of What Would Diplo Do?, a new comedy series written, and executive produced by James Van Der Beek (Dawson's Creek), who will star in the show as a fictional version of Diplo, Deadline has reported. The show is co-executive produced by Diplo and "shepherded" by Oscar-winning filmmaker Spike Jonze.

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The series was described to Deadline as "Louie meets WorldStar HipHop crossed with This Is Spinal Tap, Van Der Beek plays a fictional version of DJ superstar Diplo in collection of parables about life as told through the eyes of guy who can bring 60,000 people to their feet… but kind of sucks one-on-one." The show will have its premiere "later in 2017."

In June of 2016, Van Der Beek debuted his version of Diplo in Day In the Life of Diplo, a short video promoting Diplo's Mad Decent Block Party tour. You can watch it above. According to Van Der Beek, the sketch led Viceland to contact Diplo's manager Kevin Kusatsu and pitch him on turning the concept into a full series. Kusatsu and music video director Brandon Dermer are also credited as executive producers on What Would Diplo Do?.

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James Van Der Beek Will Play Diplo In A New TV Comedy Series