James Roday (; born James David Rodriguez; April 4, 1976) is an American actor, director and screenwriter. He starred on the USA Network series Psych as hyper-observant consultant detective and fake psychic Shawn Spencer.
Video James Roday
Early life
Roday was born in San Antonio, Texas, as James David Rodriguez. He attended Taft High School in San Antonio. His father, Jaime "Jim" Rodriguez, is of Mexican descent, and his mother, Irene Rodriguez, is of English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. Roday's father is a retired Air Force Master Sergeant and used to be the regional catering manager of Taco Cabana.
At New York University's Experimental Theatre Wing, Roday studied theatre and earned a bachelor's degree in fine arts. At the age of 22 he selected the professional name James Roday as there was already another "James Rodriguez" registered in the Screen Actors Guild.
Maps James Roday
Career
Roday started his acting career starring in various theatrical productions, including Three Sisters, A Respectable Wedding and Severity's Mistress. He took on leading roles in Sexual Perversity in Chicago and Extinction which he produced with his theatre company Red Dog Squadron, for which he also directed the play Greedy and wrote and directed the one-act play Sustenance. His most recent foray onto the stage was in December 2016, when he starred in the New York production of White Rabbit Red Rabbit by Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour.
His big screen debut was in the 1999 movie Coming Soon alongside Ryan Reynolds and fellow debutant Ashton Kutcher. Other early film credits include the 2003 film Rolling Kansas and the 2005 film adaptation of The Dukes Of Hazzard. Behind the scenes, he and writing partners Todd Harthan and James DeMonaco wrote the screenplay for the 2006 film Skinwalkers. The team also worked on a script for the film adaptation of the video game Driver. Roday directed his first feature film, Gravy, in 2013, written by him and Todd Harthan.
Roday's television credits include starring roles on NBC's Miss Match in 2003 as "Nick Paine" and 2001's First Years as "Edgar 'Egg' Ross". His big break came on July 7 2006, the series premiere of USA Network's original series Psych. Airing following the season premiere of USA's other comedic success, Monk, it was the highest-rated scripted basic cable TV show premiere of 2006. Psych ran for 8 seasons until 2014.
After Psych ended, Roday starred in various pilots and independent films, most notably Pushing Dead by independent filmmaker Tom E. Brown which accumulated a slew of awards at film festivals all over the country. At the same time, he began focusing more and more on his work behind the camera as a director, writer and producer. He has since directed episodes for Battle Creek, Rush Hour, Rosewood and Blood Drive. He also developed, wrote and directed the pilots Shoot The Moon for USA and Quest For Truth for E!.
Most recently, Roday starred and executive produced, Psych: The Movie. The TV movie will air in December 2017, which he also co-wrote with Psych's series creator Steve Franks.
Awards and nominations
In 2006, Roday was nominated for the Best Actor in a Series, Comedy or Musical for Psych by the Satellite Awards. He was listed as #62 in People magazine's 100 Most Beautiful People issue in 2007. In 2008, he was nominated for Outstanding Actor In a Comedy Television Series for Psych by the NCLR ALMA Awards.
His role as Shawn Spencer in Psych earned him an EWwy Award nomination in 2009 for Best Actor in a Comedy Series. In 2009, he was nominated by the ALMA Awards for Outstanding Actor in a Comedy Series for Psych. In 2011, he was nominated again by the ALMA Awards for Favorite TV Actor-Leading Role for Psych. In 2010, he was nominated by the Image Awards for Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Series for Psych for the episode "High Top Fade Out." In 2009 and 2011, he was nominated by the Imagen Foundation Awards for Best Actor-Television for Psych. Roday also won the award for Best Lead Actor in a Drama Series at the 2nd Annual Timmys Awards in 2012, after being nominated the previous year, but lost to Hugh Laurie. In 2012, Roday won the award for Best Actor in a television series for Psych at the Imagen Awards.
Personal life
Roday is the co-artistic director of the Red Dog Squadron, a Los Angeles theater company he co-founded with Brad Raider. In 2012, Roday, on behalf of Red Dog Squadron, and Black Dahlia Theatre artistic director Matt Shakman purchased the El Centro Theatre in Los Angeles, which is still undergoing renovations and will reopen under its original name "Circle Theatre".
Roday dated his Psych co-star Maggie Lawson from 2006 to 2014.
Filmography
Actor
Director
Writer
References
External links
- James Roday on IMDb
- USA Network biography of James Roday
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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