Posted on 07/14/2020 8:23:02 AM PDT by EdnaMode
ames Rodriguez was a freshman at New York University when the then-aspiring actor first learned that his Mexican-American heritage was going to be a problem for Hollywood.
He had just nailed an audition for a big feature film, but the casting director was put off by the fact that his Caucasian-like skin tone was out of sync with his last name. So he was offered the chance to read for the role of a gang member, only to be told that he wasn’t right for that, either.
“I didn’t look Latino enough,” he recalls. “They basically didn’t know what to do with me.”
The movie was Primal Fear. The lead role in question launched Ed Norton’s career.
Three years later, on the eve of his college graduation, Rodriguez nailed another big audition for a series-regular role in a buzzy, DreamWorks-produced TV pilot. But the issue of his counterintuitive surname came up again.
“They said, ‘You might want to give some real consideration to changing your name,'” he says.
And with that, James Rodriguez morphed into James Roday.
Two decades later, he’s morphing back: Wednesday’s anticipated premiere of Psych 2: Lassie Come Home (on NBCU’s new streaming platform Peacock) will usher in the arrival of James Roday Rodriguez.
In an extensive interview with TVLine, Rodriguez breaks down those “two inauspicious audition experiences” that led him to drop his birth name, and opens up about how — some two decades later — the death of George Floyd and the global reckoning with racial injustice that it triggered prompted him to take it back. He also reveals the key role his current series, ABC’s A Million Little Things, played in this awakening, and discusses the significance of his new moniker debuting in the opening credits of this week’s Psych sequel.
(Excerpt) Read more at tvline.com ...
I learned to like Psych while laid up with sprained ankles.
Don't care...don't watch their garbage anyway.
Huck Follywood.
So now stage names are racists. Do you know how many actors and actresses change their names for the screen? This could really change history...BTW, you can take down all the John Wayne statues, just leave Marion Michael Morrison alone.
“ I want to be the best, most honest ally and amplifier that I can be for my own community and for my friends of color.”
Who talks like this? Is this woke-speak?
I suppose next we'll find out it's filled with sex predators.
People desperate to work in their current field and not be blacklisted.
I am white until it became politically incorrect so now I am Mexican /s
I don’t care if he changed his name to help his career, almost every actor has done so. But to change (or revert back) to a name that you think will protect you is...well cowardly.
Hey James, word to the wise, it is not going to matter. Appeasement never succeed. What are you going to do when they come after Hispanics? You toss your white friends under the bus and they will not be there to help protect you when the mob is at your door.
I haven’t clicked on the link. I have no idea who this guy is. I’ve watched a lot of Psych, but I don’t know who the actors are. lol What character is played by James Roday Rodriguez? I can’t believe an actor would change his name. lolol
Seriously, I can't think of one house-hold name white-male actor under the age of 50. -RckyRaCoCo
This has been going on for years. I wonder how much of it is discrimination and how much of it is from actors avoiding sexual predators. Straight white male actors don't want the casting couch for their jobs and the sexual predators aren't attracted to nonwhite victims.
“How soon before Martin and Charlie Sheen go back to their original names Estevez?”
Well, Martin doesn’t need the work and Carlos probably wouldn’t get any even if he changed his name back and started dressing like a mariachi.
Notice who the actual racists are? Hollywood and the liberals.
Really? Chris Pine, Chris Hemsworth, Tom Hiddleston, Karl Urban (not much longer), Benedict Cumberpatch. And that’s just the Marvel crowd. Plenty of white actors making the bank.
So what this non-white Mexican is saying is that he’s been appropriating white culture? Piss off, cabron.
He plays Sean Spencer.
I looked him up. Who knew!
When I was young, I would have known who he was. But now, I don’t care about actors and actresses. I do like the show though.
Hollywood has always been fickle. If everyone used their real names it would sound like Shindler’s list.
I respect the guy for stepping up and helping to make it easier for others. THAT is what is “supposed” to happen.
Makes me wonder how Desi Arnaz was ever able to become a Famous Actor, TV Star and Owner of a major Hollywood Studio.
Maybe everyone thought he was Jewish, just like Sammy Davis Jr.
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