Early life and education

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 now 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.

Career

Roday has acted in various theatrical productions, including Three Sisters, A Respectable Wedding, Severity's Mistress, and Sexual Perversity in Chicago and Extinction with his theater company, Red Dog Squadron, for which he also directed the play Greedy and wrote and directed the one-act play Sustenance.

He starred in the 2003 film Rolling Kansas, and appeared in the 2005 film adaptation of The Dukes Of Hazzard as Billy Prickett and the 2006 film Beerfest. Behind the scenes, he and writing partners Todd Harthan and James DeMonaco wrote the screenplay for the 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". The July 7, 2006 series premiere of USA Network's original series Psych (airing following the season premiere of USA's other comedic success, Monk) was the highest-rated scripted basic cable TV show premiere of 2006.

In 2012, Roday served as the special guest ring announcer for the CM Punk vs. The Miz match on the 12 March edition of WWE Raw SuperShow.

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 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 reopened in Spring 2015 under its original name "Circle Theatre."

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1999	Coming Soon	Chad
1999	Ryan Caulfield: Year One	Vic	Series Regular
2000	Believe	Bruce Arm / Agent Johnny
2000	Get Real	Trent Sykes
2001	Thank Heaven	Receptionist
2001	First Years	Edgar	Series Regular
2002	Repli-Kate	Max
2002	Providence	Alexander Conrad
2002	Showtime	'Maxis' Cameraman
2002	Rolling Kansas	Dick Murphy
2003	Miss Match	Nick Paine	Series Regular
2005	Don't Come Knocking	Mickey, First Assistant Director
2005	The Dukes of Hazzard	Billy Prickett
2006	Beerfest	German Messenger
2006	Skinwalkers		Co-Writer
2006-14	Psych	Shawn Spencer	Also writer, director, and producer 2009-2014
2008	Fear Itself	Carlos	Episode: "In Sickness and in Health"
2009	Gamer	News Co-Host #1
2011	WWE Tough Enough	Himself	Episode: "I've Been Bamboozled & Flabbergasted"
2011	Love Bites	Jeff	Episode: "TMI"
2012	WWE Raw super show	Himself	Special guest ring announcer
2015	Gravy	Marty	Also director and co-writer
2015	Good Session	Joel	Unaired CBS Pilot
2015	Christmas Eve	B	Also known as Stuck
2015	Baby Baby Baby	J.B.	Independent Film written and directed by Brian Klugman
2015	The Nerd Herd	Kip Mitchell	aka The Brainy Bunch, Unaired ABC Pilot
2016	Pushing Dead	Dan Schauble	Independent Film written and directed by Tom E. Brown

[ Source: Wikipedia ]