You look like a Mexican as Micheal Jackson in his later year looked black.
On a side note, if you have Amazon Prime, watch for free 'Square One' about the Jackson child molestation trials. It looks like all 5 of them were all extrotion rackets.
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 ...
Two words, Eric Estrada.
The CD can suggest the race and sex but the writers and producers determine the age/race/sex of each character. Many times the network or studio will interfere and make their demands. It can be quite frustrating when characters change at the last minute.
You hit it on the nail. BTW, Dancing With The Stars just fired their long time hosts, Tom Bergeron and Erin Andrews. Hmmm.....let me guess the makeup of the new hosts.
nope, nope,.....
I worked with an actor who changed his name back to his legal Hispanic name years ago.
Exactly. The new hosts will both be black (or one black and one hispanic). Bet the ratings will be terrible.
F'em!, he goes into the list of if he's in it I'm not watching/supporting it. He's one of the subtle racists that lie to themselves about being racist...........he's and actor!
I met him at long ago DragonCon.
Seemed nice enough.
Good God...yet another victim’s tale.Here’s a quarter,Pedro...call someone who cares!
“Who talks like this? Is this woke-speak?“
Now, don’t be so hard on the boy. He probably worked on that tweet for a week. You know, referencing every special touchstone of woke emotion. His friends are probably so proud.
What about his friends of no color?
Well, thanks for not actually mentioning his name, otherwise we would have known whom you were talking about, and maybe cared.
Regards,
His name is irrelevant.
He thinks he’s special.
Frances Ethel Gumm, Archibald Leach, Norma Jean Mortenson and Marion Michael Morrison all changed their Northwestern European names for more marketable Northwestern European names when they entered the Hollywood business.
(Judy Garland, Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe and John Wayne.)
Don’t forget Bernie Schwartz (Tony Curtis), Nathan Birnbaum (George Burns) Albert Einstein (Albert Brooks), Krishna Pandit Bhanji (Ben Kingsley) and lord knows how many others changed their names when they entered show business.
Same happened with the black hot chick, tough lieutenant, in Firefly.
Although being hispanic, she could not get casted as hispanic or roles as a latina, so she had to suppress being hispanic and act black in order to get roles.
I didn’t forget; but Jewish actors changed their names for different reasons— to create more acceptance from “white” audiences—the same thing Rodriguez did.
My post, by contrast, was about people with English names selecting “better” English names for show biz—no racial component to their decision.
You look like a Mexican as Micheal Jackson in his later year looked black.
On a side note, if you have Amazon Prime, watch for free 'Square One' about the Jackson child molestation trials. It looks like all 5 of them were all extrotion rackets.
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