Inspired by racial movements- Actor James Rhoday (Psych) Reclaims his Mexican last name Rodriguez

[tulipsandroses]

When I read this, I thought about George Floyd's daughter saying " Daddy changed the world" - He sure did, He sure did.



James Roday Details 'Deeply Personal' Decision to Reclaim Birth Name Rodriguez: 'I Want to Be the Most Honest Ally for My Community

James 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

[link:https://tvline.com/2020/07/14/james-roday-rodriguez-name-change-psych-2/|

[Cha]

1. I watched that show Psych for awhile and I liked him

in that. I had read his birth name was Rodriquez but not why he had changed it.

Thank you for this, tuplipsandroses!