James Roday Rodriguez

format_quote There was a James Rodriguez in SAG—I believe he was a dancer. So I would've had to throw in a middle initial or something—which I didn't think was awesome. And then what really took it home was that the first job I got—which was a sitcom pilot for ABC—one of the execs strongly suggested to me that I consider changing my name, because it was the late 90s and the NAACP was really cracking down on the networks for lack of diversity. They had it in their heads that they were going to catch all kinds of fire for casting a white guy with a Latino name and trying to say, 'look at us, we're being diverse.' This is actually something that they were concerned about.

stars  James appears in the movie Beerfest, that was released on August 25, 2006

stars  He graduated from Taft High in San Antonio

stars  James Roday Rodriguez is his birth name, but he shortened it when he started acting. He has said if he could start over, he would keep his full name

stars  He's proud of his Hispanic Heritage

stars  James worked with Alicia Silverstone on the 2003 series Miss Match.