James Roday Rodriguez

Rodriguez was born in San Antonio, Texas, as James David Rodriguez. He attended Taft High School in San Antonio. His father, James "Jim" Rodriguez, is of Mexican descent, and his mother, Deborah Collins, is of English, Irish, and Scottish ancestry. Rodriguez's father is a retired Air Force master sergeant.

At New York University's Experimental Theatre Wing, Rodriguez studied theatre and earned a bachelor's degree in fine arts.At the age of 22, he selected the professional name James Roday. In a July 2020 interview, Rodriguez explained the decision was mainly driven by producers and casting directors feeling his appearance clashed with his Latino family name. The characters he read for up until that point were not written with a Latino background in mind. In order to book his first job, he legally changed his middle name, David, to Roday (from an Anton Chekhov play), and omitted Rodriguez from his screen name. In the same interview, he stated regret that he "sold out [his] heritage in about 15 seconds.” In 2020, he announced that going forward he would use his full legal name of James Roday Rodriguez.

Rodriguez started his acting career starring in various theatrical productions, including Three Sisters, A Respectable Wedding, and Severity's Mistress. He took on leading roles in Sexual Perversity in Chicago and Extinction which he produced with his theatre company Red Dog Squadron. For RDS he also directed the play Greedy, and wrote and directed the one-act play Sustenance.