James Rolfe

At 43 years old, James Rolfe has this physical status:

James Duncan Rolfe (born July 10, 1980) is an American actor, filmmaker, film/video game critic, and internet personality.

Rolfe is best known for creating and starring in the webshow Angry Video Game Nerd, a joint production of Rolfe's Cinemassacre Productions, GameTrailers, and ScrewAttack on the online video platform YouTube.

His other projects include reviews of board games and classic horror films. Rolfe began creating homemade video productions in the late 1980s.

He has created more than 270 films, including shorts, features and webisodes, during his career.

His career as an Internet celebrity took off in 2004 with the beginning of the Angry Video Game Nerd.

Two years later, Rolfe gained mainstream attention when one of his videos went viral after friend and collaborator Mike Matei persuaded him to publish them on the Internet.

Between this time, he filmed videos he created on his own and most of them have been released on his website, Cinemassacre.

Early life

Rolfe was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 10, 1980. He was raised in south New Jersey. His parents bought him an audio recorder as a Christmas present sometime in the early to mid-1980s. Later, he got a camera and took photographs of him and his friends play fighting. He was inspired by The Legend of Zelda and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to create adventure stories. Rolfe also illustrated comic books, which he updated monthly. One such comic he created had a plot inspired by the video game The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past.

Rolfe started filming shorts in 1989 continuing this hobby into the mid 1990s. He used Mario Paint for a few of his early films. He eventually took classes for hand-drawn animation at a university. His early films did not have scripts or rehearsal. However, once he started writing scripts, his friends gradually lost interest because of the pressure of trying to remember their lines, which left many of Rolfe's films unfinished. He then tried his hand at action figures and puppets. The plot of The Giant Movie Director (1994) involved toys coming to life. Rolfe attended a special education school for seven-and-a-half years during his childhood. He reflected on his past, "In school, I had a rough time communicating. I went to special ed for seven-and-a-half years. I liked it, I had a good time. But socializing in general... I was a little awkward. Art always made me feel comfortable."

Rolfe attended the University of the Arts and has a bachelor's degree in fine arts.

Since his early teen years, Rolfe operated and ran an annual "haunted house" Halloween attraction out of his parents' garage (the same garage was later used in building a graveyard for his horror comedy film The Deader, the Better and again used in his film/series pilot Jersey Odysseys: Legend of the Blue Hole), using a collection of several props and antiques that he later reused multiple times in his other films.

Personal life

Rolfe attended the University of the Arts in Philadelphia from 1999 to 2004 and continued living there after graduation. He briefly relocated to Los Angeles while filming Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2014) but returned to Philadelphia upon completion of the movie.

In 2004, Rolfe was involved in a car crash when a utility trailer came loose from its truck, flung out to the other part of the highway, and hit him head-on. Rolfe sustained no physical injuries from the crash, while his Saturn Ion, which he had bought just nine days prior, was wrecked. Later that year, Rolfe discussed his experience in a short movie, Mechanical Losses, which can be seen on YouTube.

Rolfe met April Chmura in July 2004; she was a cinematographer on the early Nerd episodes. They began dating shortly after and got married in November 2007. He announced at the premiere trailer for Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie in November 2012, that they were expecting their first child. In April 2013, she gave birth to a baby girl. Rolfe has not divulged details about his daughter except for a few photos and expressing thanks that his wife got past complications resulting during childbirth.

In November 2013, April posted an update on Rolfe's Cinemassacre website that their daughter is continually seeking medical treatment due to unspecified complications. On April 13, 2016, Rolfe revealed what happened while announcing an auction of various Cinemassacre memorabilia to benefit Shriners Hospitals for Children. During birth, his daughter suffered nerve damage in one of her arms, and required many months of physical therapy to gain full use of it. Rolfe expressed gratitude to Shriners for all they did for his family during that time.

Rolfe's second daughter was born on September 1, 2017.

He is of Italian ancestry.

Rolfe had a pet cat named Boo who occasionally appeared on the Angry Video Game Nerd. Boo died of cancer on April 27, 2020.

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Career

He shot A Night of Total Terror in his backyard in May 1996, a horror film that he has dubbed "the turning point of my life." Rolfe produced several films in the late 1990s, including the B-horror film The Head Incident, which he produced in 1999 but did not announce until 2009, the tenth anniversary of the project. In 2001, he created Cinemaphobia, which follows an actor who is ill from a lot of work and sees hallucinations of cameras following him. Two versions of the film were created, a ten-minute version and an extended, fifteen-minute version. Rolfe has stated his preference for the shorter ten-minute version. Except for narration, he created Kung Fu Werewolf from Outer Space in the same year. Stoney, a spoof of the 1976 film Rocky, is also a one-hour comedy film directed by Tony Covington. It Came From the Toilet, his eighth film of the year, was It Came From the Toilet. Curse of the Cat Lover's Grave, his third film, was split into three separate horror genres in 2003. Rolfe produced a pilot of a planned web series titled Jersey Odysseys: Legend of the Blue Hole, a tribute to the state of New Jersey's urban legends. The pilot revolves around the legend of the Jersey Devil.

He began editing industrial training videos in 2004, which he left in early 2007.

In May 2007, he launched You Know What's Bullshit?, a web series in which he rants about common pet peeves, such as pennies, shoelaces, pay toilets, and printers. Originally being rants by Rolfe, he instead created "The Bullshit Man" to host the series (which is essentially Rolfe wearing a mask resembling cow dung). The Bullshit Man made several cameo appearances in AVGN media, including select videos and the video game AVGN Adventures as a mystery character. The show's name was shortened to You Know What's BS in 2020. Due to YouTube's commercial policies, the site was unable to function.

Rolfe started filming The Deader, the Better, a classic-style B-movie horror film that pays homage to the 1968 horror film Night of the Living Dead. In October 2007, the film appeared at the Atlanta Horror Fest for the first time. Rolfe released a music video on May 5, 2006 that featured stock footage from his trip to England and Scotland. The music used in his performance was from the Black Sabbath's album "Heaven and Hell." Between 2004 and 2007, Rolfe was also involved in the 48 Hour Film Project. He was the Audience Award Laureate for his film Spaghetti Western in 2007. Death Suit (2004), Death Seen (2005), and Death Secret (2006) were among his other films.

Rolfe's career didn't gain traction until May 2004, when he shot a 5-minute short review of Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) games Castlevania II: Simon's Quest under the banner "Bad NES Games." His character was originally named "The Angry Nintendo Nerd," but it was later shortened to "The Angry Video Game Nerd" to avoid trademark problems, as well as other consoles (e.g., Xbox 360). Sega Genesis (Atari 2600) is a video game. When Rolfe was studying at the University of the Arts of Philadelphia from 1999 to 2004, he imagined the role. Rolfe produced yet another video, a look at the 1988 game Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, which was intended as the last of the series due to Rolfe's reluctation of the game. The gag featured The Nerd drinking alcohol as a result of a game's inebriation; Rolfe's first use of Rolling Rock for the gag, but later performed the parody with Yuengling beer, hard-liquor, or non-alcoholic hot sauce. Rolfe had intended to keep his videos private, but Mike Matei, his buddy and colleague, persuaded him to upload the videos on YouTube's "JamesNintendoNerd" (now called Cinemassacre), which Matei created and managed for him on April 6, 2006.

Rolfe's character first became well-known on YouTube on September 12, 2006. His videos were also published on GameTrailers and ScrewAttack, and they had received 30 million views per month. As of September 2019, he has over 3 million followers. Rolfe halted production of the series at the end of 2007 and cancelled an appearance at MAGFest due to a voice break. On March 17, 2010, he announced that he was suffering from burnout as a result of regularly writing, directing, and starring in the films, and that the show would undergo a brief absence. In May 2010, it was supposed to return, but an episode was published on April 30. Episodes are released on the first or second Wednesday of each month, as opposed to two episodes per month due to Rolfe's other projects. Episodes were shown on YouTube more than a year after they first appeared on GameTrailers. Rolfe had been associated with ScrewAttack before he resigned in 2013.

Rolfe's Nerd character rose to fame thanks to a fictional rivalry with fellow YouTuber Doug Walker's Nostalgia Critic character Nostalgia Criticism. In an early video, the Critic unleashed a satirical attack, sparking a Nerd reaction. The feud erupted over several videos between 2008 and 2009, culminating in a cross-over video titled "TGWTF Team Brawl" wherein the characters fight and then reconcile. Rolfe and Walker announced that the feud was entirely fictional and that they were in fact good friends; the two men have since collaborated on a number of films and other projects, which was out of character.

On cinevore.com, Rolfe appeared as the Nerd in a music video parody of Britney Spears' "Piece of Me" entitled "Piece of Meat."

For a time, Rolfe concentrated on creating Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie, which revolves around E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Atari 2600's video game, is one of the Extra-Terrestrial. Rolfe and Kevin Finn's film was entirely funded by fan donations. The film's debut in 2014 fell on the 31st anniversary of the 1983 video game disaster. The film's last scene, in which The Nerd reviews E.T., was later released as a standard AVGN episode.

In a Doritos and Pepsi commercial that was released online in November 2010, Rolfe had a cameo. The commercial was part of a voting competition in which the winning clip would be shown during Super Bowl XLV. However, the advert was eventually pulled due to public outrage because it parodied the Catholic faith of Eucharist. Rolfe appeared in the Ghostbusters' fan film Return to the Past in 2007. He was featured in the 2009 documentary His Name Was Jason, in which he addresses the 13th movie series and its antagonist Jason Voorhees. In the corresponding episode of Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy, Rolfe addresses the Nightmare on Elm Street NES, a title he had previously covered as the Nerd in the 13th AVGN episode. The bonus feature can be found on the second disc of the Never Sleep Again DVD set.

Rolfe was supposed to be seen in a low-budget version of Plan 9 from Outer Space called Plan 9, which was announced by Video on Demand starting February 16, 2016, and then extending on physical media in stores on January 5, 2017. Rolfe appeared in a short film about Sonic the Hedgehog from early to mid-January 2013. Adam Wingard had been offered a role in V/H/S/2 but had to cancel due to being involved on Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie. He was later offered a potential cameo in Godzilla vs. Kong by Wingard, but the production was unsatisfactory due to Rolfe's second daughter's birth. Rolfe appeared in the crowdfunded 1980s horror film In Search of Shadow, a crowdfunded horror film.

Rolfe's progress in making new videos has slowed considerably, but after Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie (2015), including Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, based on the video game, Flying Fuckernauts vs. The Astro-Bastards (2016), a salute to B-movie sci-fi, and Mimal the Elf (2017), a mockumentary. Rolfe said he was in the midst of a general update video about YouTube's future, on May 25, 2017. [The film will] take place in a single room... very minimal." Rolfe revealed on December 29 that 2018 would lead more to his own original projects and that he had started writing the untitled horror story. It would be in the spirit of recent campaigns, including Legend of the Blue Hole and Cinemaphobia. Rolfe said on August 8, 2018, he was 55-75% done with the script and that it would have some sort of 'nostalgia theming,' but that it would probably have more revisions and there are no plans to film it in the near future. Rolfe said the script was completed on June 19, 2019, but Rolfe's commitment to video production would delay the project for the foreseeable future.

Rolfe revealed on October 18, 2020, that the horror film was postponed indefinitely due to time constraints. Rather, he directed a sequel to his 1999 horror short The Head Incident, reuniting several members of the original cast/crew. Rolfe released a video on June 10, 2021, a man who was visiting a childhood amusement park but then became trapped there. Rolfe said the project could be revived in another medium and that he was currently working on another small-scale screenplay.

A number of other reviews of Rolfe and associates as themselves have appeared in Cinemassacre. Video games (under the James & Mike Monday series), video game peripherals such as the VictorMaxx Stuntmaster headset, and films were among the topics discussed. Board James, Brendan "Bootsy" Castner's, and Mike Matei's other series, where he, Brendan "Bootsy" Castner and Mike Matei review old board games in a humourous manner, often with recurring characters. This show eventually developed to become a psychological thriller series, though still including board game reviews in every episode. The show lasted for three seasons and 27 episodes before ending in 2015.

Rolfe appeared in a fifteen-part series named OverAnalyzers in which he played the part of a fictional company that investigated various pop culture references. Cinevore, a website that was also a website, was able to produce the series. On Spike.com, he also worked as a film reviewer.com.

Rolfe has been running Monster Madness, a DVD series in which he reviews one horror film a day in October 2007. Each year, he has chosen a new theme for Monster Madness. The year 2007 was the horror movie ever experienced. In 2008, Godzillathon was released, in which he chronologically analyzed all of the Godzilla films. Monster Madness Three, which was released in 2009, was a film about a variety of well-known and little known horror films. Camp Cult in 2010 was held in both campy horror films and cult classic films, such as Troll 2. Sequel-A-Thon, which was devoted to horror films, was released in 2011. And a thon was 80 years old, with only 1980s films included. During the production of The Angry Video Game Nerd Movie, the first five years of Monster Madness have been reduced to one film review per day for the entire month of October 2012. Despite the decreased number of film reviews, the film essays in 1980's-a-Thon were longer than previous reports on Monster Madness. Monster Madness' one review per day has been updated following the Sequel-A-Thon 2's October 2013. Sequel-A-Thon 2 in 2013 was released in the United States, which was later known as horror sequels. In October 2016, the previous 31 marathon Monster Madness series premiered. Rolfe expressed his excitement about future halloween-themed projects and reviews, but said that Monster Madness will always live on in some form.

Son of Monster Madness debuted in 2017, but only five new reviews were published, with the remainder of October dominated by reuploads of older reviews that were previously not available on YouTube. Despite not having videos posted every day, Monster Madness is back in October 2019, and Rolfe is bringing a guest speaker to discuss the films. In 2021, Rolfe brought Monster Madness back to life with the support of Screenwave Media. However, Rolfe reacted anachronized footage of the 2021 series after finding that his author had plagiarized excerpts from the episodes' scripts.

For Cinemassacre's YouTube channel, Rolfe and Mike Matei created James and Mike Mondays, formerly called James and Mike Plays. Kyle Justin, who wrote the Angry Video Game Nerd theme song, Brandon Castner, also known as Bad Luck Bootsy from Board James, JonTron, and Macaulay Culkin, appeared in the series. Rolfe and Matei had been producing episodes for eight years before they announced that the series would be on hold until February 2021. However, Matei left Cinemassacre in December 2020 to become a full-time streamer on Twitch.

Rolfe posted a video on Youtube on May 16, 2016, in which he expressed disappointment with the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot film and how he delayed seeing it rather than publishing a report. Rolfe sluggishness in the film's lack of originality, but she had no complaints with the female cast. Some in the entertainment industry chastised this position, with others noting that a significant portion of fanbacklash against the film was rooted in misogyny. Patton Oswalt, the actor who chastised Rolfe, rebutted his accusation later, claiming to have "picked the wrong target." Rolfe had no misgivings about Oswalt, and admitted in an interview with Double Toasted in 2021 that he didn't even think what was supposed to be wrong.

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