James Roday

James Roday
Roday at the San Diego Comic-Con International in July 2013
Born	James David Rodriguez (1976-04-04) April 4, 1976 (age 40) San Antonio, Texas, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, director, screenwriter
Years active	1999–present

James Roday (/roʊˈdeɪ/; 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.

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.

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. In December 2016 he starred. in the New York production of White Rabbit Red Rabbit by Iranian playwright Nassim Soleimanpour.

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.