James Roday Rodriguez is an American actor, director and screenwriter. He is best known for starring on the USA Network series Psych as hyper-observant consultant detective and fake psychic Shawn Spencer. He stars in A Million Little Things, which debuted in 2018.
Early life
Rodriguez 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, Deborah Collins, is of English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. Rodriguez'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, Rodriguez 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. In a July 2020 interview, Rodriguez expanded on the name change, stating the decision to go by James Roday was mainly driven by producers urging him to change his name to better suit his Caucasian appearance. He legally changed his middle name, David, to Roday and omitted Rodriguez from his screen name. In the same interview, he announced that he would be reclaiming his last name and go by his full legal name, James Roday Rodriguez, going forward.
Career
Rodriguez 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 film 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. Rodriguez's television credits include starring roles in 2001's First Years and NBC's Miss Match in 2003. His big break came on July 7, 2006, with the series premiere of USA Network's original seriesPsych. 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 eight seasons until 2014. After Psych ended, Rodriguez 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 on his work behind the camera as a director, writer and producer. Rodriguez has since directed episodes for Battle Creek, Rush Hour, Rosewood, Blood Drive and The Resident and developed, wrote, and directed the pilots Shoot The Moon for USA and Quest For Truth for E!. Rodriguez directed his first feature film, Gravy, in 2013, written by him and Todd Harthan. He co-wrote and directed his second film Treehouse as part of Hulu's monthly horror movie anthology Into The Dark, which aired in March 2019. In 2017, Rodriguez returned to his most famous role as he starred in and executive produced . The TV movie, which he also co-wrote with Psychs series creator Steve Franks, aired in December 2017. A sequel was officially announced on February 14, 2019. It was filmed in Vancouver in March and April and is set to air in 2020 on NBCUniversal's streaming service Peacock. Rodriguez is currently starring as Gary Mendez on ABC's dramedy A Million Little Things. The 2019–2020 Fall Season is the show's second season. In July 2020, Rodriguez announced that he was changing his screen name to his full legal name, James Roday Rodriguez. Psych 2: Lassie Come Home is the first project to carry his full name.
Personal life
Rodriguez is the co-artistic director of the Red Dog Squadron, a Los Angeles theater company he co-founded with Brad Raider. In 2012, Rodriguez and Black Dahlia artistic director Matt Shakman bought the El Centro Theatre and started a long process of renovations with the intent of reopening it under its original name Circle Theatre. In a newsletter from August 2018, Raider and Rodriguez announced that they had to resell the theatre in early 2018. Rodriguez dated his Psych co-star Maggie Lawson from 2006 to 2013.
