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James Rolfe
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Born
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James Duncan Rolfe
July 10, 1980 (age 38) Penns Grove, New Jersey, U.S. |
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Occupation
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Actor, comedian, filmmaker, film director, screenwriter, film producer, film critic, video game critic
Owner of Cinemassacre Productions |
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Years active
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1996-present
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Notable work(s)
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Residence
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Philadelphia, Pennsylvannia, U.S.
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Education
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The University of the Arts (PA)
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Spouses
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April Rolfe (2007-present)
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Children
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2
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James Duncan Rolfe (born July 10, 1980 in Penns Grove, New Jersey) is an American actor, comedian, filmmaker, director, producer, and writer who is best known for his internet production of The Angry Video Game Nerd.
He also makes other projects such as Board James, a board game-reviewing segment with him and his best friend Mike Matei, as well as Monster Madness, an annual segment that airs each October with 31 horror film reviews. Starting out in his childhood, Rolfe filmed Nintendo video game reviews in the late 1980s and early '90s and has filmed more than 270 films during his career, taking classes to improve his skills. His career fully took off in 2004 with the beginning of the Angry Video Game Nerd.
Two years later, Rolfe gained mainstream attention when the first four episodes of AVGN went viral on the internet after Matei persuaded him to publish them onto YouTube in 2006. In 2008 and '09, Rolfe's character went through a fictional feud with the Nostalgia Critic.
From 2007-2011 his AVGN series was on Gametrailers, but was then brought back to YouTube in July 2012. Instead of a new episode once every 2-3 weeks, he has cut back to one episode every 2 months. Rolfe recently produced and acted in his first-full length feature film, Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie, which premiered on July 21, 2014. Rolfe is also due to star in the low-budget film Plan 9, a remake of Plan 9 From Outer Space. The website 4 color rebellion named Rolfe as: "the everyman's video game reviewer" in his role as "the Nerd".
In AVGN's episode 162 (Amiga CD32), James appears in the episode as himself.
Early Life
James Rolfe's parents brought him an audio recorder as a Christmas present sometime in the early-to-mid-1980s. Later on, he got a camera and took photographs with friends performing fights for new projects. He was inspired by The Legend of Zelda and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to create adventure stories. On occasions, Rolfe drew on the pictures for the extra feel. He would place the photographs into his personal albums and write next to them so that the plot of the story could be told. Rolfe also illustrated comic books which he updated on a regular basis every month. One such book he wrote was off a plot inspired by the video game The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.
Personal life
James Rolfe has been married to April Rolfe since 2007. They have a daughter who was born on April 26, 2013. His favorite bands are System of a Down, Alice In Chains, Metallica, Slayer, and Iron Maiden. His favorite movie of all time is It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (1963). He has also been shown to be a big fan of horror movies. His second daughter was born on September 1, 2017.
Early film work
Rolfe started off filming video game reviews in 1989 and continued this hobby into the early '90s. He often used Mario Paint for a few of his early films. He eventually took classes for hand-drawn animation at an art university. From this class, Rolfe knew that his career was destined to be in the film industry. His early films did not have scripts or was rehearsed but once he started writing scripts, his friends gradually lost interest because of the pressure of trying to remember their lines.
This led to many of Rolfe's movies becoming unfinished. He then tried his hand at action figures or puppets. One film, The Giant Movie Director from 1994 involved his toys being depicted as alive.
Eventually, Rolfe became dissatisfied with stop-motion and turned his attention to hand-made animation using the skills learnt from his classes and regularly painted by hand and computer programs.
In May 1996, he filmed in his backyard, a film which he calls "the turning point of my life" entitled A Night of Total Terror. The film had been inspired by silent horror movies such as Nosferatu.
In the late 1990s, Rolfe created several films such as the B-Horror movie The Head Incident that he finished in 1999 but was not released until its tenth year anniversary in 2009.
He also made Cinemaphobia in 2001 which follows an actor who suffers from an overload of work and sees hallucinations of cameras following him. Two versions of the film were made, a ten-minute version and an extended version that lasts fifteen minutes.
Rolfe has stated his preference for the shorter ten-minute version. Within the same year, he created Kung Fu Werewolf from Outer Space which is a mainly silent movie except for narration. He also created an hour-long (the version that was posted on the internet was an abridged one, lasting ten minutes) comedy film entitled Stoney, starring Kyle Justin, which is a spoof of the 1976 film Rocky. In this film, Rolfe portrays the interviewer.
His eighth film (short) of 2001 was It Came from Beyond the Toilet starring Mike Matei in the leading role. In 2003, he created another film entitled Curse of the Cat Lover's Grave which was split into three parts to define three different horror genres.
Rolfe made a pilot of a planned web series entitled The Jersey Odysseys: Legend of the Blue Hole which is based on the urban legends of the state of New Jersey, however the series has not occurred as of today. The pilot centers around on the legend of the Jersey Devil.