PASADENA, Calif. — James Roday admits he's not the least bit psychic. Maybe that's not good press for the guy who stars in USA's comic cop show, "Psych," in which he plays a phony medium who bases most of his prognostications on simple observation and common sense.
"There were a couple times where I'll just get a weird premonition. I think we've all had that with a family member where you get the feeling something's not right and it turns out to be right," says Roday over lunch in a noisy restaurant here.
"I think that has to do with being in tune with another person, you kind of feel that energy whether they're in the same room with you or across the country. You just feel whether things are going good or bad. But I've never been able to predict anything as my record in Las Vegas sports betting will show: no psychic prowess there," he says.
Roday is so happy to be playing the cocky Shawn Spencer that he has finally forgiven himself for coming to Los Angeles in the first place.
Not looking for TV show
"I wasn't really looking to do television at all, coming off my third massive failure on television out of three," says Roday, who's dressed in a blue padded vest, ochre T-shirt and a navy baseball cap with "NY" embroidered on the front.
A former theater snob, he says, "I think a lot of actors come to L.A. -- as I did -- with a little bit of a chip on their shoulder: `I'm serious and you guys aren't. And it's hard for me to take this work seriously because it isn't Shakespeare and it isn't even Tom Stoppard. It's a sitcom.' I moved to L.A. to do a series on Fox."
When that bombed, he hung around for another, and it also suffered a short shelf life. But the actor who had been trained in New York (and survived three back-to-back versions of Chekhov's "The Three Sisters") hung in there.
Finally veteran actor Michael Rispoli (who would later play Jackie Aprile Sr. on "The Sopranos") pulled him aside. "He said, `You know, I've been watching you. You never talk to anybody, you never smile and you have this chip on your shoulder, and I know it because I had it about 25 years ago. About the best advice I can give you is get rid of it and be lucky that you're a working actor. Use every experience to gain something about your craft because there are so many people who'd give their left leg to be in your position. You can always go back and do theater, always. So just drop the `actor' and jump in and be appreciative and learn something about what we're doing.'"
The show he shared with Rispoli, "Ryan Caulfield: Year One," never made it to year one, but it taught Roday a precious lesson, as did the recent loss of his young cousin to a deadly reaction to a prescription drug.
About that he says, "I was at her wedding and then I was at her funeral. It definitely opened my eyes to a way to live life I don't think I was doing. I have to say if that hadn't happened, I honestly don't know if I would've gotten there on my own yet."
`In the business'
In fact, Roday -- who says he was never much interested in dating in Hollywood -- has a new love. While he won't give her name,. he reports she's "in the business."
"It's also the first time I've ever dated somebody who I can honestly say came out of a friendship first. It was one of those things for the longest time I don't think it occurred to either of us to be anything but buddies. It's been a little like a fairy tale. I'm learning how to be romantic because of it."
Roday, 30, grew up on Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, where his dad was in charge of VIP visitors. His mom worked in special education. An only child, Roday was lonely because new friends would come and go as their parents were reassigned.
The family left the base when he was 12. It was then that he formulated a plan to be an actor that saw him eventually graduate from New York University.
"About a month before graduation, I went to visit an agent. I was basically looking to ask which head shots she liked. We hit it off and she wanted to sign me there, and she was ready for my first audition. I was like, `Look, I still have a month of school, I have finals, I'm doing a show. I might need a month.'
Testing for a pilot
"She said, `Just do it.' It was a pilot that had been floating around NBC that they couldn't cast toward the end of pilot season. So I went in and read and a week later I was flying to L.A. and testing for a pilot -- not even knowing what that meant. But if you don't know any better, you don't know enough to be nervous. I ended up getting it, a little pilot called `Home' that never went anywhere. But we did shoot it. From that I got a little independent film in New York and another pilot that went to series.
"The bottom line is I've been very blessed. It's been wonderful and enchanting, and I thank my lucky stars every day. It's not the most popular story to tell in a roomful of actors, but I did have it pretty easy."
© Chicago Tribune
