James Van Der Beek: 'Young stars today have a harder time with fame'

James Van Der Beek is convinced today's young stars have a harder time with fame compared to when he became a household name.

American star James first found stardom when he was just 20 years old after landing the lead role in teen TV show Dawson’s Creek. His co-stars Katie Holmes, Joshua Jackson and Michelle Williams were also catapulted to worldwide fame, with the four still enjoying success in film and TV.

Comparing his early years in the limelight to the young stars of today, like 23-year-old Justin Bieber, James says he had a much easier ride.

“It’s way worse than it was for us, I will say that 100 per cent,” the 40-year-old actor told British newspaper the Evening Standard. “It’s not hard – coal mining is hard, being a soldier is hard – but getting famous at a young age is tricky.

“You don’t know who to trust. People want things from you and are manipulating you. There’s money to be made off of you. It’s a lot of weird energy being thrown around.”

James previously spoke out in support of Justin’s no picture policy, after the popstar declared last year (16) he was done taking pictures with fans during his downtime because it made him feel like a "zoo animal".

And it’s the lack of camera phones and instant media coverage in the '90s that allowed James and his Dawson’s Creek co-stars to fly under the radar.

“The thing is that we could do something stupid and wake up the next morning and go, ‘Wow that was dumb, I’m never doing that again’ and not have it be splashed in the front pages of a magazine and be labelled as a person who does that stupid thing. So we could just move past it pretty quickly,” he said.