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James Rolfe
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Born
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James D. Rolfe
July 10, 1980 (age 43) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
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Occupation
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Actor, comedian, filmmaker, film director, screenwriter, film producer, film critic, video game critic
Founder of Cinemassacre Productions |
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Years active
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1989-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 (BA)
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Spouse
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April Rolfe (2007-present)
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Children
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2
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James D. Rolfe (born July 10, 1980 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) is an American actor, comedian, filmmaker, director, producer, and writer who is best known for his web series of The Angry Video Game Nerd.
He also makes other projects such as Board James, a board game-reviewing series with him and his best friend Mike Matei, as well as Monster Madness, an annual series that airs every 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, Rolfe's character went through a fictional feud with the Nostalgia Critic.
From 2007-2011, his AVGN series was on GameTrailers, but was brought back to YouTube in July 2012. Instead of a new episode once every 2-3 weeks, he cut back to one episode every 2 months. However, he started making AVGN episodes more frequently from 2017-2021, before going back to an episode every 2 months.
Rolfe produced and acted in his first-full length feature film, Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie, which premiered on July 21, 2014. Rolfe also starred 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.
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. He has also been shown to be a big fan of horror movies. His second daughter was born on September 1, 2017.
In 2021, Rolfe hosted a mini-series on the Cinemassacre channel, where he played his second daughter’s Super Mario Maker 2 courses, saying that his first daughter likes playing other people’s courses while his second daughter loves making her own.
Early Films
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. 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. 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.
In May 1996, he filmed in his backyard, a film which he calls "the turning point of [his] life" entitled A Night of Total Terror. The film had been inspired by silent horror movies such as Nosferatu. Rolfe created several films such as the B-Horror movie The Head Incident, which he finished in 1999 but did not release until its tenth 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 comedy film entitled Stoney, starring Kyle Justin, which is a spoof of the 1976 film Rocky. In this film, Rolfe portrays the interviewer. The version that was posted on the internet was an abridged one, lasting ten minutes.
His eighth film (short) of 2001 was It Came from Beyond the Toilet starring Mike Matei. He created another film in 2003 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, which is based on the urban legends of the state of New Jersey. The pilot, titled Legend of the Blue Hole, centers around on the legend of the Jersey Devil.