James Van Der Beek joins the cast of ‘Legally Blonde’ prequel series ‘Elle’

James Van Der Beek is officially going Blonde.

The Dawson’s Creek star is the latest actor tapped to join Elle, Amazon MGM Studios’ new Legally Blonde prequel series. Van Der Beek has been slated for a recurring guest star role as Dean Wilson, the current school district superintendent and mayoral hopeful of the show’s fictional town.

The casting announcement comes in the wake of Van Der Beek revealing in November that he was diagnosed with colorectal cancer. Noting that he had “reason for optimism,” Van Der Beek’s diagnosis hasn’t slowed his pace of work, having already appeared this year on The Masked Singer and appearing soon on Benito Skinner’s new Amazon Prime series, Overcompensating.

Elle was announced last May. Produced by original film star Reese Witherspoon‘s Hello Sunshine company, the prequel series will rewind to the high school days of her character, the fashionable legal eagle Elle. The series’ official logline notes that viewers will get to “learn about the life experiences that shaped her into the iconic young woman we came to know and love.”

In February, Witherspoon anonunced that the series had found its new Elle Woods. The Murdaugh Murders and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit star Lexi Minetree was informed by Witherspoon herself that she got the role in an emotional video shared in February.

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Additional cast members include June Diane Raphael, who will play Elle’s mother, Eva; Tom Everett Scott, who will play Elle’s father, Wyatt; as well as Kayla Maisonet (Stuck in the Middle), Lisa Yamada (Little Fires Everywhere), Chandler Kinney (Pretty Little Liars: Original Sin), Jacob Moskovitz (Y2K), and Logan Shroyer (This Is Us).

“I truly couldn’t be more excited about this series,” Witherspoon said in a statement shared alongside the series announcement in February. “Fans will get to know how Elle Woods navigated her world as a teenager with her distinct personality and ingenuity, in ways that only our beloved Elle could do. What could be better than that?”

Though Witherspoon is on board the series as an executive producer, no stars of the original series are set to reprise their roles. Minetree will instead play an aged-down version of the role that earned Witherspoon a Golden Globe nomination. Raphael will also play a younger version of the character originally portrayed by Tana McClure, and Scott will play the younger version of James Read’s film character.

Elle has no relation to a third film in the franchise (following the 2003 sequel Red, White & Blonde), which has been in development since 2018, with Mindy Kaling joining as a screenwriter in 2020.