The title may seem a bit odd and ahead of its time by a few months, but this is all true. James Van Der Beek will star in a new Viceland scripted TV as Diplo titled What Would Diplo Do?
The show is being described as a crossover between "Louie meets WorldStar HipHop crossed with This Is Spinal Tap," according to Deadline where Van Der Beek plays a fiction version of the superstar DJ "who can bring 60,000 to their feet... but kind of sucks one-on-one."
The idea for the show came from a short concert promo for Mad Decent Block Party titled A Day in the Life of Diplo where Van Der Beek played Diplo. Viceland saw the absurd promo video and decided they wanted to do a full show with it.
"I had that day free, I did a quick rewrite and found that it came easily," Van Der Beek said about being approached to do the video. "It was fun and that was it, I never thought it would lead to a series."
Van Der Beek has played comedic versions of his himself such as on the ABC Series Don't Trust The B*tch and on Funny Or Die.
Viceland, TMWRK (Diplo's management) and Matador are producing What Would Diplo Do? Oscar-winning filmmaker and Vice co-president Spike Jones is also involved in the project.
"When James was in the office a few weeks ago, he told me the story lines he had sketched out, they were, of course, funny; one even got me emotional which made it that much more funny. This idea has gotten inside James which makes me really excited to see what he makes and happy to have it on our channel," Jonze said.
The series is slated to premiere later in 2017.
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