I think I might have earned a little bit of respect from him that day because that’s not how he rolls. “Dulé was pretty disgusted but I think also impressed. And I was apologetic! I mean, look, nobody deserves to see that. It was a local performer who probably got a helluva more than they bargained for that day. And as most of those scenes generally entailed, there was an additional day player who catches us snooping around, so there was another actor with us on the boat. “It was me and Dulé and we were going our normal investigative stuff where we were snooping around a boat trying to find a clue. Someone has footage of me puking on and off in between lines.” And unfortunately - or fortunately, now that this story is being memorialized - that footage exists.
“I think a couple times between takes they might have run in with a wet wipe for me and maybe a breath mint or two. And we proceeded to do about two hours worth of work that day with me interstitially vomiting over the side of the boat because I didn’t want to say ‘cut.’
I’d go back and get in another three or four lines. In the middle of the scene, over the side of the boat. “There’s just no way around it and I was like (long sigh), I have two options: I can make a big deal out of this and I can yell cut and run to a nook or try to get to a bathroom, or I can recognize that I brought this on myself, that this is my own doing and we have a limited amount of time to get the work done. And it hits while the cameras are rolling and I’m in the middle of a scene. “So I woke up and I’m feeling a little groggy but I’m working through it, it’s all good. And nobody - even though I’m surrounded by a crew of local lifelong Western Seaboard fisherman and surfers and paddle boarders - nobody said, ‘You might not want to do that because it can throw off your equilibrium.’ Not one person said, ‘Don’t go down beneath the deck and take a nap.’ “So I end up napping for about 50 minutes while everyone went back to shore for lunch. Because that’s what I needed: To reboot and recharge the battery. So I was like, you know what? I’m good, I have a Power Bar and I’m going to go down below deck and grab some zzz’s. It just seemed like it entailed a lot: Getting on the boat, going all the way back, you have just enough time to scarf something down before you have to turn around and get back on the boat to take you out to the barge. “And I made a choice - because I’m a grown man and grown adults can make choices - and I made a choice the first day we were out there on the barge not to come back to land for lunch.
James roday full#
But we had never done a dedicated ‘You’re going to be out there acting full scenes on a barge the whole day and only coming back to land for lunch’-type stuff that we did in this episode.
James roday series#
And yes, we had been out on boats before - speedboats, a couple big freighters you’re in Vancouver (where the series filmed), you’re going to incorporate the water here and there. This one we were kind of riffing on ‘Jaws’ and water movies, so we had a lot of boat work. I think it was called “The Head, the Tail, the Whole Damn Episode” (from 2010). “I want to say it was Season 5, we were doing one of our theme episodes. When asked to share a cringe-y moment in his career - the kind you feel in the pit of your stomach - he replied: “It’s interesting that you say ‘pit of my stomach’ because the pit of my stomach is the source of this story.” “You do this for a long time and it becomes very clear the good gigs from the bad gigs and the older you get the more you appreciate the good ones - and this was the best one.” He counts “Psych” as a high point in his career.
James roday movie#
The opening credits in the new “Psych” movie will list him as James Roday Rodriguez.) He had previously been using a stage name. (On Tuesday, in an interview with, the actor announced that going forward he will be using his birth name, Rodriguez, professionally to reflect his Mexican American heritage.